Frankie crossed my mind this morning. She often does. I welcome it. I cherish it. I find much joy in it. I no longer mourn her being gone, but am grateful she was part of my life.

To mourn her forever would mean, to me, that I wouldn’t be honoring her life and all the blessings she brought me.

She has been on my mind also as I’ve been working through a personal challenge. I’m happy to say I feel so much better after four weeks of guidance that I sought to help me through this.

While I don’t want to share the specific challenge, I will share that I discovered something that was buried. I was surprised this came up as I didn’t realize it was even there, nor did it particularly feel connected to the challenge I was going through.

But what I’ve realized is that I never fully mourned the loss of the work I did with Frankie. While I moved through the grieving process of losing Frankie herself, the work we did together visiting schools and doing therapy dog work, is something I was still hanging onto.

In part, because I didn’t know what the next leg in my journey looked like. I’m still not quite sure “what is next,” but after journaling through an exercise called transitional grieving, I literally felt this shift of energy in myself.

I now find myself celebrating all that it was – all those glorious years of work with Frankie – instead of wishing it never ended.

Celebrating all that I learned from Frankie which has made me who I am today. Celebrating how I grew through challenges of fear, talking in front of crowds, learning to write a book, sharing my voice and how I feel about dogs in wheelchairs and dogs with disc disease, worrying less about what others think of me, and letting that inner light of who I am shine through.

So as I get ready to embark on a new learning adventure, I smile because of her.

Friday I leave for a weekend training in Madison, WI to learn more about SoulCollage. A technique that has captured my fascination the last few months.

A process of listening deeper to our wise selves and capturing those whispers on 5 x 8 cards that you create individual collages from using images from magazines. The card above is one I created yesterday.

If not for Frankie, I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to do this training. For one thing, I’m going alone. I don’t know one single soul that will be there. The woman I knew ten years ago would have never done this.

Frankie is a big reason why I’m stronger today than years ago. More willing to take steps out into the world then before.

But it is all part of my souls plan — I see this — I see it in my recent challenge that I feel I’ve made great progress on also.

Frankie was, and continues to be my guide, as I step forward into new territory to be explored.

I think back fondly to the first day she took off in her wheelchair after not walking for three months from a diagnoses of disc disease which left her paralyzed.

How she encouraged me to be who I am by her example. To follow what makes my heart happy. To live fully.

So I carry her with me in my heart as I head to the training this weekend. Her life lessons still with me, and I have no doubt will always be with me until eternity.