Introduction

Welcome to the January 2012 issue of Touch: The Journal of Healing.  Many people and things touch us in our lives, but sometimes we feel even more deeply the impact of absence.  The remnants of loss can leave us in the same moment numb and aching to remember.  Healing comes like an unexpected friend at the end of a walk through days and nights of loneliness and grief.  What prompts the heart to let go, to live, and to never forget?  The answer is as unique as the love we each carry.  Like a nail on the wall that once held a beloved's portrait, the simplest of things can be transformed into the hope of a new beginning - a new place to hang onto the gifts of life.

We each have a story to tell, and in this issue you will find many stories that offer new ways to look beyond the empty spaces in our lives and to accept the present for what it has to offer in the moments we are still able to share so that we may start to rebuild and recover from loss.  Whether through recognizing the symbolic meaning of a missing photograph, realizing that the strength we once found in loved ones has been replaced by frailty, or reviewing the ways our lives have been forever change, it is only by accepting these that we can begin to move on.

Whatever gray canvases we may encounter, poetry reminds us of the colors that can be dared to be painted in words felt passionately about the struggles and joys of life.  And in the telling of stories, there is the reminder that not only are we not alone, there is an infinite landscape of experience waiting for each of us and that sometimes, we possess strengths we draw from that we may have never realized were there.

We thank you for joining us on this adventure and hope that the inspiration of our many gifted poets and writers will be a welcome friend on your path of growth and healing.

O.P.W. Fredericks, Editor

Daniel Milbo, Assistant Editor