🪷🙏🪷 The Still Point Inside the Storm of 2025 🪷🙏🪷 A Year of Color, Chaos, and the Quiet Places Within Us

Some years pass quietly, moving through our lives like soft breezes. And then… There are years like 2025 — years that arrive with colors too bright, emotions too sharp, events too loud, and energy that feels like the universe turned the volume all the way up and snapped the knob off 😊

If you’re reading this and nodding, breathing a little heavier, or whispering “yes… exactly,” you’re not alone. This year has been a storm — a vibrant, chaotic, unpredictable storm painted in every color imaginable. Unexpected endings… even more unexpected beginnings. And behind all of it, the hum of spiritual energy rising and vibrating like a live wire beneath our feet.

It has been a year where the world felt upside down and inside out. A year where people searched for steadiness while everything around them moved like a carnival ride spinning off its hinges. A year where coffee went cold faster because our thoughts were louder than our sips. A year where even our quiet moments had echoes.

Let me begin with something simple and real:

Please, have a seat and read this with me. I think my life this year has been as colorful as a rainbow — maybe too colorful, the kind that makes you squint and say, “Oh my God… am I shading the whole world or is the world shading me?”

The events of this year have been countless — overwhelming, colorful, loud in every direction — but there is one chapter that rises above the rest, a chapter I carry in the deepest place of my heart. I lost my best friend of 30 years. She was more than a friend. She was a mother figure, a grandmother to my child, a woman whose presence could soften any room she walked into. Her family was vast, her love even larger, and she wore the crown of a great-grandmother with so much dignity and sweetness.

Back in December 2024, I learned she had cancer. I didn’t know how advanced it was — I wasn’t prepared for the truth that unfolded. Despite our age difference, she was one of the most lovable, warm-hearted, life-embracing women I had ever known.

We had our sweet Limoncello rituals: holiday catchups, soft brunches, warm lunches, and those precious in-between moments — where we spoke about life with gentle honesty, laughed at the smallest things, and enjoyed the comfort of being side-by-side. Our last meal together — our last shot of Limoncello — was in December 2024. Something inside me knew it was the final one.

I even asked her if I could keep the little shot glass. She smiled and said, “Of course.”That glass now sits like a tiny altar of memories — a symbol of a thousand shared meals, giggles, and conversations. A reminder that she now shares her Limoncello with her ancestors in heaven, making them laugh the same way she made us laugh here on earth.

When her health declined, I visited her as often as I could. Maybe I missed a day or two — life happens, exhaustion happens — but I was there when it mattered. I heard her whisper how much she loved me, and I whispered it back. She always knew I walked between two worlds… and that night, I saw both worlds meet.

Outside the hospital room, in the hallway, I saw her husband — the one who crossed two or three years before. He was waiting. I knew then that she was close. Part of her wasn’t ready, and part of her was relieved that he’d come to guide her. I leaned close to her ear and whispered, “It’s okay to go.”

A few days later, at 3 a.m., she woke me. Not with sound… but with spirit. I felt her departure so clearly that it pulled me out of sleep. I knew she had crossed.

I wanted to text her daughter — the instinct was strong — but I held myself back. Some news is not ours to deliver. Some doorways must be opened by the family, not the friend, even when the soul whispers before the phone rings. Thank God we’re not living in the 16th century, or I’m sure someone would have accused me of sorcery for knowing the moment of her passing.

Her funeral was beautiful — truly beautiful.

The church was filled with her family, every pew carrying a piece of her legacy as they gathered to pray and say goodbye. Then the piano began… and the music reached straight into my chest. All the strength I thought I had dissolved in one sweep of those notes, and the tears came without permission.

As the priest prayed and others read from the Bible, something happened.I felt a sudden, icy-cold hand touch my left hand, the one resting quietly on the bench.I didn’t need to turn — I knew it was her.

And then, as clear as day, I saw her apparition standing right beside her coffin. Smiling. Mischievous. With that classic sparkle in her eyes. She leaned in, tapped her hand against her cheek, and whispered, “Psssst… who is this?” pointing at her own coffin and bursting into laughter.

My God — that woman! Even at her own funeral, she was teasing me.I almost laughed out loud. I leaned toward my daughter and whispered what I saw — and instead of sadness, a wave of peace washed over me. Because in that moment, I realized she wasn’t lost at all. She crossed gently, beautifully, and with the same humor she carried through her entire life. Such a teaser, eh? Even heaven won’t get a break from her 😊

But the truth is simple:

When you love someone that deeply, you feel their final breath even if you’re miles away. I am fighting tears and say, This is the first time I will miss our get together for the branch or lunch.  

My friend, there is a place within you that the world cannot shake, that chaos cannot stain, that noise cannot touch. You may have forgotten it this year. You may have lost sight of it between the headlines, the responsibilities, the spiritual whispers, and the financial tremors. But it’s there — a small, steady flame at the center of your storm.

This is the place I want us to visit together. Because as the holidays approach, and the world grows even louder with expectations, memories, and emotional weight…we need that still point more than ever.

Take a breath, my dear reader. You’ve survived so much of this colorful storm already. Let’s walk into the quiet part of it. Let’s find the meaning, the lessons, and the strange beauty within the noise. You! You are not alone in this ✨🙏✨