The artist who created my logo is Jennifer VanDyke/Abra-ka-Jenny Creations, and I love it. Jenny is a new friend I met a few months ago. I told her about my desire to become a blogger and detailed my goals. She asked me a few questions from an artistic perspective and offered to make some suggestions after pondering them for a few days. She dove in headfirst, and I now have a beautiful piece of art straight from her visionary mind.
I knew I wanted to write about being a wellderly, an aging person living well. Jenny suggested my blog title, Living Welderly. My tagline, “Aging With Purpose, Changing By Design,” was a sudden inspiration. The idea of using a butterfly in the logo was mine, likely from a long history of being drawn to butterflies.
Watch a butterfly flutter through a beautiful garden; you can’t help but feel peace and calm. All butterflies are symbols of good luck, and the blue morpho brings sudden good luck. It’s thought to be a wish granter symbolizing joy and happiness. The symbolism of the butterfly speaks to me and gives me peace.
My daughter passed away a few months ago, and I’m looking for a new purpose in life. She negotiated her way through cancer treatments, and she did it wearing her signature grin and voicing pleasant words of cheer to those along her path. I believe in God, and I know He loves me. I have physically felt the all-encompassing warmth of that love. I think He is directing me on this path to deal with the adjustments of life without my daughter. I reflect upon her memory often, and those memories always reflect endurance, change, and, finally, hope. For a while, that hope felt hopeless, but as time went on, hope was what kept me going because that hope was that I would see her again. I will hold her in my arms. I will hear her say, “Hi, Mom,” and this time, I’ll know that it won’t end with any more death and won’t be sullied with earthly ills or cares. In the meantime, her memory will bring smiles to my heart even though rivulets of tears drip from my chin. The picture is of me, my daughter, and her youngest son, taken about a year before her passing. We went to church that day, and many showed their support by wearing pink, including her husband, three sons, and her dad, all wearing pink ties. It was heartwarming.
I invite you to visit my site often and see the blue morpho butterfly. Meditate while watching the butterfly video. Together, we’ll participate in a journey through the garden of life. My goal is to nourish our souls and bring spiritual peace. I hope butterflies cross our paths many times over. Perhaps I can bring some humor to these days of squeaking joints, memory lapse, and the changing landscape of our faces. I pray our mutual transitions through the coming years of aging will result in joy.