I start this journey seven years later, wiser, and instilled with a hope that a greater purpose lays ahead for me.

The past few years have been a revelation in their depth of sorrow and pain they have provided. I have now glimpsed the edge of the pool that is suffering, and perhaps the greatest loss of all, of love.

It is difficult to utter this four-letter word, even harder then those of more emphatic four letter words that have become my utterances of late.

It is not a word I profess to understand, but perhaps have come to appreciate some facets of its many guises.

Experience is an amazing thing, it amasses within us wisdom and knowing that we often see in time weary faces around us but fail to appreciate. While wisdom around us is so abundant it is like speaking to a rock that has not experienced the weather of the outside world, to the rock the pebble looks simple, smooth and round, but in its simplicity fails to see the harsh sculpture the climate has carried out to transform the hewn rock to its pebble stage.

To become this new smooth contour the pebble has been shaped by the elements and in doing so has also lost some parts of itself into the environment around it. The minute sand that has slowly washed of its rough surface has now become a part of the sand it lies on, the soil of the tree under which it is shaded, and the very essence of its own surroundings.

The pebble has changed, and in doing so changed the world around it.