Keep Moving Forward, Always with Love

I wear two bracelets on my right wrist. One is a silver arrow. The other is a gold-plated heart that has faded to bronze after months of sweat and showers. Each was given to me by a best friend: two women who have had indelible impacts on my life.I have been looking at these bracelets a lot the last few days, whenever my brain zones out from what I'm doing and wanders back to Sunday, and a helicopter crash, and the deaths of one very famous person and his daughter and seven other people. It is a true tragedy, unfathomable, heartbreaking. Of course, events like this happen all over the world every day but this one struck me, shocked me, rocked me, as I know it did many others.My only connection to Kobe Bryant is that we are about the same age, my high school is down the road from his, and I once played on the same basketball court where he played. He was already famous in high school, so I knew it was special that I got to play a game there against girls who were his classmates. I even scored all the points for my JV team that day: four. Yeah, we got creamed. But I'll never forget it.I didn't know Kobe Bryant. I hesitate to call him a hero because his legacy is a complicated one. But my heart breaks for his family, and for all the families of those who were on board. A tragedy is a tragedy and especially now that I'm a mom, these things hit me hard.These bracelets that I wear remind me to do two simple things: keep moving forward, always with love. Life has felt a lot more precious these last few days. I have hugged my family a little tighter and breathed a little deeper. My usually dormant anxiety has been at a low simmer. I breathe through that, too.But mostly I am just trying to keep moving forward, always with love.