Anyone who has ever lost a parent knows and lives with an emptiness such as they have never known before. Too many times we find ourselves picking up the phone to call Mom or Dad and tell them of something exciting happening in our life, or maybe, to tell them something wonderous we saw during the day or maybe to simply say "I love you." Then reality hits and we realize we can't call, we can't even visit in the sense that we used to. They are gone, never to return as we once knew them to be here. We set the phone back down in it's cradle and hang our heads, tears blinding our sight while a sense of dread overcomes us...Where are they? Why did they leave? Didn't they know I needed them here? Didn't they care? Then we feel the guilt and the shame because we ever allowed thoughts as those to enter our minds. We remember how they suffered in the end. Recently I learned that sometime ago a wonderful artist here lost his Mom...that artist is efron_241, real name Chris...Everytime Chris posts an image here at Rend I run to his gallery with bells on my toes because I know I'm going to be delighted with what I see. He is an exceptional artist with a unique quality all his own. While there commenting one day I noticed that he had left a comment to another artist who had commented on his image so I read it to see what Chris had to say...it was there that I saw he had lost His mom sometime back and I could feel that emptiness and that dreaded gloom of the approaching dates of my own parent's deaths. I knew exactly how Chris was feeling and I wanted to reach out and embrace him and say, "It's ok." It's true that we as well as others can no longer sit and laugh or talk with our parents now, at least not as we used to do Chris. But instead of remembering how we lost them, why not remember how they Lived? Wouldn't that help keep them alive within our hearts and our minds? Maybe we just need a special place where we can go and remember, maybe look over the horizon and see them there...maybe they are telling us to be at peace as they are now and maybe, just maybe at that precise moment a warm summer breeze will blow, brushing aginst our cheek bringing with it the kiss of our loving departed... This image is for you Chris...I hope it will help in some small way when those "sad days" come around...hugzzzz my friend....Marly