My heart never truly left the emergency room. For over a decade, I stood in the fire with patients in their worst moments, offering care, calm, and presence. I thought I’d be there forever—until two back surgeries forced me to medically retire. Losing that part of my identity broke something open in me. For a long time, I didn’t know how to mend it.

And then… tea found me.

It wasn’t just a drink. It was divine intervention.

In one of the darkest seasons of my life, when I no longer wanted to be here, tea became the mirror I didn’t know I needed. The boiling water reminded me of my own boiling point—my pain, my rage, my loss. But something sacred happened when I paused, poured it into a vessel, and added the tea. In those few steeping minutes, I let God pour back into me. The chaos calmed. The pain softened. The water turned to gold.

That’s how Rooted Vines was born.