Okay. This is the situation: My friend Nicole is in Nepal helping to build shelters for earthquake victims. In her blog, she wrote about a platter of flowers, “red tika that the elder blessed and smudged on our foreheads.” For much of the past week I carried in my head an image of Nicole amid the ruins with tika. I spent so much time trying to make it visible through Photo-shopping that I’m running late. If I sit here writing, I won’t be able to visit two other friends in two different nursing homes today. I won’t be able to finish the photo project I’m working on for a bereaved mother I met online.

So I’m leaving you to fill in the blanks, connect the thoughts. Young Nicole following her heart and reaching out to strangers across the world whose lives have been devastated, the villages in Lalit Pur where they lost 95% of their infrastructure yet still found red flowers to give that symbolize gratitude and long life, and my own small efforts to make life better for others.

All I wanted to say is, we need to take care of each other. We give what we can. And if you’re feeling lonely or directionless, or you think your life is in ruins, go help someone else. It may make you feel like you’ve been blessed with red flowers.