It is with much love that I dedicate these pages to someone that has always been a very important part of my life, and who is very special and dear to me ...  This is just a very small way of showing them my appreciation for always taking the time to listen, being able to understand, and for always being there for me.

So often it seems that life is only made up of things to worry about.  Life has many disappointments for all of us ... death, illnesses, betrayals, tragedies, and feelings of worthlessness and despair.  Sometimes life can seem so very grim, and so many times we tend to wallow in pools of self-pity.

I would just like to say again ... I believe that our time here on earth gives us the opportunity to grow spiritually.  We can experience much personal growth because of all the suffering, worries, and difficulties we have to go through during our mortal lives.  It is God's way of fine-tuning us so we become more compassionate, more caring, more loving, and more aware of others' pain.  After all, how could we ever dry the tears of others if we had never cried ourselves?

We all find ourselves in the valley of despair sometimes.  It may sometimes seem that we are forever worrying, learning lessons, suffering pain, and facing challenges.  But we must try to remember that the fertilizer that helps us "grow" is in those valleys, not on the mountain tops.

During the times that we feel scared and confused, we will always end up wiser and we will grow more from the experiences.  We will understand more about people and life, become more sensitive, and we'll be able to enjoy life more after we go through the hard times.

We have to experience sadness so that we may better measure joy.  Life has a way of balancing the sorrow with the joy, the disappointments with the hope, and the emptiness with the meaning.

I do hope you're able to realize that even though things look cloudy right now, they'll get better soon.  Just remember that it takes rain to make rainbows, lemons to make lemonade, and sometimes it takes difficulties to make us stronger and better people.  If you hang in there, you will see that the sun will shine again soon ... you'll see.