A Heavy Heart

What I am going to tell you is hard to hear. It's sobering. It's sad. It is real.
I met Kim last year through my dear neighbor, Angela. She loved my jewelry, I loved her smile and her enthusiasm and the way she looked at her little girl. I gave her a simple pair of earrings and you'd have thought I just handed her the entire moon...she was like that. She was feisty and bold and funny. She was a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a friend...

She was you. She was me. She was any of us.

Kimberly Jacko and her daughter May 2011

On new years day, she was gone. A snowy road on the way home claimed her life.  A car accident that left her little girl without her mother, and a husband and family and friends drowning in grief. It was the first snow here, and after 8 years of life here, I know all to well, that the first snow always claims lives and injures people. But no one ever thinks....

 



There is a heaviness here, in this little town...almost like everyone has felt their own mortality smack them in the face.

Including mine. My grief is private, and tears spill in the quiet spaces of my evenings when the house is still. When I look at my young son...my tiny grandson...my husband... My head is reeling with constant thoughts of my brief time with Kimberly, what her family must be going through, the grief her husband must feel...the mental list is endless. And dear Angela, my sweet and kind neighbor, she is beside herself with grief...coming to me with sad eyes that I can hardly bear to see from such a joyous soul. They were good friends. And in her grief, Angela is gathering tangible and useful things from family and friends to take to Kim's husband and family to help. Kim was not only a mother to her and her husbands little girl, but step-mom to her husband's older children as well.

Kim and Angela 2010

Kimberly and Tim's Children 2011 (photograph by Angela)

I am asking of you something simple. Look around you. Count your blessings. Take a breath. Thank God for it. Call your friend. Send the unsent letter. Sing in the grocery store (or sing and dance, as I often do.) LOVE your life. Love the questions. Let go. Choose to be happy.

Kim and Tim

Tell your child you that love them. Call them now. Hug your loved ones...your friends. Make amends. Hold you husband. Your wife. Your family, your friends. Really notice the little things.

Live for women like Kim.

I have always believed in a collective good...that togetherness makes us stronger. That we should try to use our gifts for a better world.This is how I want to honor her on this snowy eve,  and use my gifts to do so. It is all that I have to give. Her family needs the help.

I am asking you to please purchase a raffle ticket. All that it will cost you is one dollar. I am raffling off  a gift certificate for FIFTY DOLLARS worth of merchandise in my shop, Sacred Cake on Etsy.
When you win, I will give you a special code to use for your gifts in the shop. You can use it any time on anything you'd like. EACH DOLLAR YOU DONATE EQUALS ONE TICKET. Each ticket you purchase increases your chances to win.

Peridot green necklace by Sacred Cake

ALSO, There will be SIX MORE lucky winners of a pair of simple, pretty peridot (pale green) crystal drop earrings in remembrance of Kimberly.

Kim's last words on Facebook were these~
"HAPPY NEW YEAR! Live well, be healthy and happy and appreciate all of your blessings!"


I am asking you to help me to help her family in their time of need and grief. Receive something special in return. A chance to win something pretty and a chance to make a difference...a chance to be a part of the collective good in the world.
Please spread the word. Click on the "Share this" in green letters under the post between the comments and the post itself. Then you can easily choose to share on facebook, twitter and a multitude of other ways.
Winners will be drawn on January 31st, for a 50.00 gift certificate and six earring winners. Remember that each dollar you donate equals one raffle ticket in the pot.