Image by rwangsa via Flickr

Before it all vanished, I was raised in a beautiful house with a rose garden that stretched across the backyard. I loved my friends, the times, my dog — and life had magically given me the best and the worst – from the Prom King boyfriend to the Adams Family roots – from most popular student to Silence of the Lambs.  At 15 the Yin-Yang ceased and my dad collapsed from a heart attack.

When the doctor told us he was gone, I thought, “I have his eyes and his name.  I can do this.”

Mother couldn’t and two years to the month she was also gone of her own accord.  I remember walking into her bedroom after the service.  We lived in a townhouse near a beer yard by then and I opened her drapes that had been closed  too long and thought, “OK. I can do THIS.”

The decision I made at 18 is the same decision I made at 28 and is the same decision I make day after day.

Even once the stuff was gone and the townhouse was rented and it was just me and my dog -  I still KNEW I could do this.

I enrolled in interior design school, got a job in a furniture store and apprenticed with a respected designer.  My first real customer was a handsome, rich young bachelor from the old hood who proposed and moved me into a big house with a bigger rose garden than I’d ever imagined.

As I looked around the enormous beauty of our home and lives I thought “Yes. I can do THIS!”

But the walls of Jericho came tumbling down and when the dust settled and I had two young daughters, questionable skills, a broken heart and very little starch left in my collar, I thought, no matter how scared, how hard, how tough, “I CAN do this because I MUST do this.”

The story has more twists and turns – but I want to cut to today.  I’m sitting here in Big Ooga HQ knowing there are four very beautiful rose bushes in bloom in the front, that the children are grown, one is about to be married and the Big Ooga is on its way.  Each day as I look at the world – at the times and conditions and circumstances – I know If I think I can – then no matter what happens – good or bad, right or wrong, rich or poor, alone or in concert, I CAN – I ALWAYS Can and the only reason I know this is because I believe it.