Last nite, I went to my favorite restaurant here on the beach called Beaches, I am always posting pictures of the sun setting from there. And just about every other day, I go swing on the pier next door to the restaurant. There was a musician last night who started at 6 pm. He calls himself the black hummingbird. He sings slow but upbeat songs.  He has a lionel richie jamican flair.  :)  anyway, this is the message I sent to him this morning. I danced mostly by myself as the sunset on the outdoor patio by the musician and it made me happy. It was my gift to myself, my gift to john because I know John wants me to dance.

Derryck,
This is the girl in the black tank and jeans that danced for hours last nite at beaches.  I wanted to tell you my story.  Yesterday, was a year from the day I told my husband YES, the day he gave me a ring and proposed.  He died 7 months ago, only 2 months after we got married. It was a complete surprise. He went into hospital on a Mondayand he died the following Monday with cancer all in his body, we didnt know.  He was diagnosed and died within the hour.  We got married on vilano beach and loved going to Beaches.  I decided to dance for him and smile for him on our one year anniversary of getting engaged instead of staying home in bed. I did all my crying all week long and ended it with dancing.  I didnt get drunk yesterday.  I danced with my heart not alcohol.  I hope he was watching because we loved to dance.  This is also why I asked you to play Bob Marley's  three little birds, so someone could sing to me that "its gonna be alright, dont worry about a thing" 
thank you for helping me out with my wish to dance for John, my angel in heaven.
daisy kretas

I have no regrets. I have gratitude and sadness but no regrets.

• one year ago today, john proposed to me.Actually, he vowed to God only after a few months after meeting me and called me wife from that day on. lol. funny man. but a year ago I got this beautiful ring and symbol of "foreverness" and togetherness. Who would have known that I would have lost him to cancer months later.

My heart hurts and it wont stop. There was a time, when I had the strongest prison gates around my heart and my mind. I was numb and that made me safe and I then had the capability to work, mother, and live. Then I met John and these bricks crumbled one by one as I began to trust a man again.  And now I want them back, but they are not there.  I cannot even muster up a single quartz of sand to build around my pain.  And this in turn begins a dominoe effect of fear that I cant stop the train. 

A poem assignment February 28th 2012  by Patrick Huffman

Only 5 short months ago
a man lay on this floor
 while his wife cried in the door.
His brother and sons split a tear
with intentions less than nice.
And while Sunshine finds her way in darkness
they care only for a price.
Books, papers, clothes, and trinkets
are all things that they bag.
But what really kills us the most
is the way they took the Flag.
"Things always turn away from the worst. "
is what ran through my head.
But not a single visit had I paid
for now a tear I shed.
I was not present that rainy day
when 21 guns rang loud.
But maybe one day his wife will see him
sitting on a cloud.

For Ms. Sunshine

This is today's morning email from Mom.  Every day for years, whether she feels bad or good, we get a good morning email.  I am a product truly of both my parents, a librarian and a math/science teacher. 

Arizona's Immigration Law goes to Supreme Court. Today there are oral agruments. The decision will be announced in June.

Can you believe that average prom cost tops $1,000 per teen? This time is Prom. Saw lovely prom clothes at the mall.

3 more Secret Service employees have been forced out of the government, bringing to 9 the number of people who have lost their jobs in the prostitution scandal rolling the agency. Pres. Obama said the employees at the center of the sorbid episode were "knuckleheads" but not representative of the agency that protects his family in the glare of public life. Oh well...

Have a good day.

Much love

Mom xoxoxoxo

Mom and Dad, thank you for your genes, your knowledge, and your love for life and travels.

So how did my phone end up in the Atlantic Ocean?  Lets start from the beginning, 4 weeks after John died.  I had not found the strength to return to the beach.  I couldnt do it, as that was my place of comfort and place of connection with  my spiritual side.  And being angry and feeling far from spiritual, I couldnt find my way to the beach.  One evening I was sitting on the couch as I did for almost 24 hours a day for 4 weeks in shock, I heard my phone text notification sound.  I picked up my phone and it was a picture message. I was standing on the beach with the sun setting behind me. I recognized this picture from our trip to Clearwater last Spring break. John took the picture and it was on his camera.  I am not cuckoo, nor do I know what to make of signs like this.  So the next day, I went to Vilano beach and met my friend Penny.  I began at the place we got married and started walking.  Along the way, in the surf, I saw something large. I went to pick it up and it was a heart, a yellow heart, not perfect but edgy and made of cement.  I cried. I truly felt this was a sign from John or God.  This occured two more times, and all three hearts are different colors and materials but the same exact size.  There is something to be said for the trinity. Three was John's favorite number.  Every since then, I myself just collect objects on the beach that look like hearts. They are random, odd shaped, and imperfect. These are not from John in  my opinion. These I search out and put in a bowl.  Hearts from the Beach, I call them.  Two nights ago, I went for a beach walk after supper. I normally go right towards where we got married but I went left instead. The sun was setting and noone was on the beach, not a single soul.  About 50 yards into my walk, there it was; a heart drawn into the sand. It was as big as the entire slope of the beach.  It was as big as my classroom.  No words, just a heart drawn into the sand, and noone around.  I started crying. This was in my belief, and its only my own to make, from John or God.  Funny, how I look for hearts and this, yes, counts as a heart.  So I tried to take a picture of it to include in my collection of hearts on the beach.  I must have taken this picture 25 times.  My phone would not keep the picture. So I tried to delete other pictures to no avail.  I was so angry because I needed this picture. I needed it to be concrete.  So I threw my phone into the atlantic ocean and cursed the ocean and screamed at God.  Screamed at John for leaving me here to figure out new situations, and to make decisions that I dont want to make. I walked back to sit on "log on the beach", so named by my sister and I cried. And I talked out loud to noone.  Not sure I want a phone. Its just something to carry around and there's never going to be a phone call from John, or text message telling me how beautiful I am or consoling words.