Aloha everyone! I just got news last night that someone I’ve known and loved, not a close friend, yet so close, passed away suddenly yesterday. Her name was Diana Cameron.We pursued acting in Los Angeles together.

The last time we spoke was a month ago, when we were trying to get together while she was visiting Kaua’i with her husband Steve. We tried to get that hug several times, but Patrick and I were in the middle of the Sacred Journey and she was busy with family. However, we both kept reaching out to each other. We had an amazing conversation on the phone and she told me that she was so happy and that her life was full and beautiful. She left us with the invitation to come visit her and Steve anytime and stay at her beautiful home in the Northwest. She was so happy there, and so happy she had decided to make the change from living in the congestion of Los Angeles.

I’m having a lot of feelings today. I am sad. She was a huge presense to all of us. Her son described her as someone with “fierce loyalty” and love for family and friends. Yes, Patrick and I felt that from her, even though we not in her close circle. She still had a belief in us and faith that she made known every time we spoke.

I could talk about the eternality of life or all those things we think of as ministers at times like these, but I just can’t. I trust that everything is unfolding perfectly and I know that I do not really know Diana’s journey; however, right now I just feel an intense desire to live life to the fullest and not to wait for anything.

Whatever it is that I want to experience that I’ve been putting on the back burner, I claim it now. Whatever love, I’ve been holding back, I give it now. Whatever words that need to be spoken to those around me, I speak them now. I let go of smallness and pettiness and those niggly little things that clog the circuits of the Divine now.

Thank you Diana for being a pure example of living life to the fullest, of loving completely and of being authentic, true and your real self. I trust in the unseen and know that this experience brings more understanding to me as a person of what lies within me and all of life. I trust the process of grieving for all of us. There is a bottom of love that holds us. I just let myself fall into it.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita