Close to the Flame: Comfort in Pain--the Memory of Love and a Well-Lived Emptiness

She Flew Too Close . . . Sometimes our life is planned so perfectly, and then we’re thrown a curveball, and we don’t know how to deal with it. We know it’s the only chance in life there will be, when we step too close to the flame. Sometimes, Mother Nature and her little surprises turn out not to be good surprises, but we never know until the very end whether it will be the greatest gift or the greatest combination of a curse and gift we will ever receive.