ANNOUNCEMENT ALERT - I'm officially open for business as a freelance graphic and web designer!

If you need any design work done, I'd love to chat.

This is all very exciting, but risky too.

Last week I left my steady part-time job in marketing to move towards a life with music and art at the centre. At a time when 'making it' as a musician may be harder than its been in fifty years, I'm going to try. Because I don't always bow to logic.

I may fail or I may succeed but either way, I'm going to find out. I'm not going to wonder 'what if'.

The morning I read the news I am sitting at my basement office desk. Facebook alerts me to a new message. It is over. She has passed. My coworker sits ten feet away. Without emotion, I say "Oh no. I just got really bad news." I feel numb. I tell her my friend has died and how it happened. I don't look at her as I speak. She is kind, but how does one respond? Moments later she has gone upstairs and my Spotify begins to play "Crack the Case" by DAWES.

Those heartbreaking opening swells. That piano transitioning from major to minor. That gentle guitar. My eyes water and I know I can't stay here. I can't sit and live life as if nothing has happened. I can't let myself fall apart either. Not here.

My friend and mentor Cheryl Muth passed away this week. She was hit by a vehicle while crossing the street and suffered irreversible brain damage. For a week or so there was some hope of recovery, but it was not to be. Her death is sudden, senseless and surreal.

But today I want to think about her life.

Cheryl was the kind of woman who touched lives everywhere she went. As an artist. As a nurse. As a missionary. As a church leader. As a friend. As a mother. As a wife.

We all have "Cheryl stories" to share. Here's one of my favourites.

Here is what I'm sure of; hope is worth fighting for.

The older I get, the less I seem to know. I have plenty of information and access to infinitely more. What I'm lacking is Truth. Certainty. Faith in the world being a certain way, always.

I do know that hope remains vital. Not hope filled with promises, but possibilities. I continue to cling to the ability to imagine a better world and a better life.

Today I'm learning a little more about how hope works. It has a lot to do with love.