Love Rocks

This is not about a rock or a pop group. It is about a project born out of tragedy.  Susan and her husband started the Love Rocks project after losing their two daughters Anna and Abby in a tragic accident on October 20,2013. Even though they were devastated by the loss they chose to keep the fun and joyous sprite of their daughters alive by making Love Rocks and sending them out for all who need love.

I found my Love Rock at my workplace at Bellevue WA, left for someone to find it. That someone happened to be me. I suspect it was left by a special Olympic athlete who was competing in the USA Special Olympics competition held in Seattle in June 2018. When I found the rock I had no idea what it was. It had a cut fabric in a shape of a heart glued on a shiny black river rock. Lucky Love Rocks were written on the back of the stone and I googled it. What I found is a touching story of tragedy and love. I saw that the parents who had to endure the greatest tragedy that any parent can go through, came up with an idea to celebrate their daughters' life and lift themselves out of grief. They chose that their girls should not be defined by tragedy but by the joy and love they had when they were alive.  They wanted to have other people find Joy and Love that their daughters had and what is more appropriate than a simple river rock with a heart shape glued on to it. 

Today Love Rocks are shared by many throughout the world and the memory of  Anna&Abby lives on.  After learning about this I decided to have a photo project on Love Rocks before I  too leave the rock where someone else can find it and keep on sharing the love. I took my Love Rock to downtown Seattle and took pictures of my rock with Seattle skyline as background and wherever my imagination took me. I walked with my rock to different places and shot and shot. After taking hundreds of pictures it was time for me too to share the joy and love. I carefully placed the Love Rock on at the bottom of a street sign took my last picture of it and left. It had been a wonderful photo project but it was also more than a photo project it was a lesson in sharing the love. I was not only taking pictures of the rock, I was thinking too. Tragedy may shatter your hopes but if you don't let yourself be defined by it you will always find Joy and Love even it is in a small thing like a Love Rocks Rock. You don't have to search hard you have got Joy and Love everywhere all you have to do is feel it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflection of a Half Century

Image
  Reflection of a Half-Century  Part One 1973-1991 The average life expectancy of an Ethiopian is 67.81 years in 2023. It had been as low as 46.13 years in the 90s when war and the high infant mortality rate kept it low. An improvement was made in the 2000s when basic health services managed to reduce the high infant mortality rate. I am living in the United States now which has a life expectancy of 74 years for men. That means I have about two decades to enjoy planet Earth. I am at the beginning of an age where you have more stories to tell. So that is what I am going to do.  Self Portrait 2023. Keeping a tradition of Birthday Portrait.  My generation has gone through so much in a lifetime that life reflects our country’s break from thousands of years of tradition to stumbling into the unknown, experimenting with ideology and theories that had not been proven to work with the country.  I was born in December 1973 during the last days of the last Ethiopian Emperor Haile Sellase I just
Read more

Birthday Portrait and Story

Image
 Another birthday portrait and time to reflect.  I no longer count my gray hairs or my wrinkles. It doesn't matter anymore how gray my hair is and how deep my crowfeet are. I am now comfortable with them and trying to gracefully age. Preparing my mindset for the few more decades I may have. To live purposefully and with some kind of meaning. As we get older the past is seen much clearer than the future (that is what makes us wiser as we age) so I go back and tell a story. A personal story.  I am just one birthday shy from living a half-century, Which takes me back 24 years ago when I turned 25. I remember marking my birthday in the middle of the night with a crescent moon over the horizon in the middle of a 53 km hike to St Gabriel Church at Kulubie. Here is the story of why I was there and why I did that hike.  My mother had a difficult pregnancy when I was conceived, she at least had one miscarriage before I was born and she was not feeling great about the pregnancy. She was worr
Read more

Houseless

Image
 Homelessness is one of the significant problems in cities across the United States. Especially cities of the west coast from southern California to the Pacific North West. The problem is causing a huge impact on daily activities within the municipalities.  When I moved to Seattle five years ago I was shocked to learn how many people are homeless and living on the street, in shelters, and in tents. Currently, around 13,000 are homeless in Seattle's metro area alone. It was and to some extent, it is still hard for me to understand why so many people are houseless in one of the richest countries of the world. 
Read more