It's been 2 years

5/21/2017 is today's date.  Officially it's been 2 years since Amy lost her battle and had to leave us behind here on Earth.  One of Amy's biggest fears was to be forgotten.  For those of us that knew and loved her, we know that's impossible.  Amy's very much a part of our every day lives in various ways.  Nonetheless, my husband Mike and I wanted to do something to honor her memory and I was inspired by a Facebook group I was added to.

It's called Northeast Ohio Rocks!  The idea behind this group is simply to "complete a random act of kindness to unexpectedly brighten someone's day one rock at a time and to pass it on".  You paint rocks, label and hide them in places (that are permitted) such as parks, parking lots, stores etc... and when someone finds the rock we hope that they'll share a photo on Facebook and with the Northeast Ohio Rocks! group that they found it.  Rocks aren't supposed to be kept, once found, they are supposed to be re-hidden.  They can be moved to another location so long as the happiness can be shared.  As painters, we can keep track of rocks that we've hidden by assigning them a certain hashtag and searching for that hashtag on Facebook. Google or Instagram.

For the past few weeks we have been painting rocks with the "Leaf on the Wind" image (to the best of my artistic ability lol) and we're going to go around to a few parks in our area to hide them.  Amy brought a lot of joy to our lives and this is our way of sharing Amy with our little corner of the world.  If we can make someone smile then we're doing right by her.

The hashtag we've assigned is #amyslegacyrocks

The "Leaf on the Wind" is part of a quote from the T.V. show/movie Firefly/Serenity.  It was Amy's motto: "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar".  She even had it tattoo'd on her wrist the first time she beat cancer.

The way I look at it is, the wind is a force of nature that we can't control and sometimes we encounter scenarios in our lives that we can't control.  If you've ever watched a leaf blowing in the wind, there's a kind of grace to it.  No matter the journey it's on or where it ends up, it beautifully glides along with the wind that's pushing it to it's final destination.  In our lives it's easy to talk ourselves out of things or oppose the "winds of change".  Being a "Leaf on the Wind" means you're strong enough to embrace that change and have the courage to believe in ourselves that we CAN do it.  Amy had this courage and she fought even though she couldn't control what was happening to her.  Always remember, you can too!