Don't put off anything, live

Yesterday morning I woke up marveling at the beauty and perfection of a Sunday morning. The sky was clear and blue. Birds were chirping. And there was silence. A wonderful and restful silence because the wind has finally stopped blowing a gale. It’s amazing how after gales we can hear the sound of silence that is present with us all the time as if it is for the first time.

I went out to my line to hang out clothes. To breathe in the fresh air. To fill my lungs with all the possibility that exists all the time. I looked out at the trees. The never ending horizon and I felt a sense of peace run through me. A sense of contentment. A sense of love.

As I was hanging my clothes out, I thought about how strange life can be. About how I woke up this morning with the promise of all that is before me when I remembered some friends very close to me probably woke up this morning and did not even see the sun. At least not in the same way I did. Tragedy has once again struck for friends I know. They woke up this morning reliving the bad dream that befell them yesterday when the daughter discovered her beloved father had died, the mother her beloved had died and the granddaughter her beloved grandfather had died. Just like that. Without warning. Without a chance to say goodbye.

This year has been a year full of unexpected deaths. Surprise endings. Full of sorrow, full of pain and it is only February. Not even two months into the New Year yet. What is going in I wondered as I hung each item on the line? Why is the joy being snuffed out of so many peoples’ lives so randomly? So unexpectedly. So quickly.

What are we being asked to do as a human race? What we are we being asked to see about ourselves? What are we being asked to remember?

I paused for a moment between hanging out the clothes and I listened to the sound of nature. The sound of perfection. The sound of the birds. The sound of silence and I saw there are beginnings and endings every single day. All around us. Nature replenishes itself all the time. Colors dying off for a particular season to give way to others so they may have their opportunity to shine.

I walked back into my laundry room after hanging out the clothes, put the basket on the floor and realize life is for the living. Tomorrow is promised to no one and that old cliché that says, don’t put of to tomorrow what could be done today, is so true. Remembering again and being reminded again by the Universe that the present moment is all we've got. All we will ever have and it is up to us to live our lives knowing there is no tomorrow. Just today. Just this present moment.

To my grieving friends, my heart goes out to you. And yes it feels like you are in a bad dream. A dream that for the present you feel you will never emerge from. And to be honest, you won’t come out of that bad dream state for quite some time. You will feel like you are operating in a twilight zone. Where you feel you have no right to experience joy when the joy you thought you had has been ripped away from you so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so randomly. But eventually that bad dream like state will diminish but not truly go away. As long as you treasure those moments you shared with your loved one. As long as you acknowledge you were loved and so was he. That all of you shared love, then all will be well in time.

Accept this present moment as your time to grieve. To remember. To treasure and always remember love does not die. It outlasts death. It remains like a painting in our brains. An imprint on our hearts. A figment of who we are and ever will be.  Always and forevermore.

Then I read a quote later in the day that said, “You will never fully live until you know you will die.” I would like to add, You will never fully live until you know you will die or have been touched by death. So let’s start living each and every single minute we have. With gratitude. With love and with abandon because this moment is all we've got.

With deepest sympathies to my friends, the spirit of your loved one remains because we are all connected to the One Source. We only separate as physical beings but never as spiritual being. The essence of who we are always remains. Namaste.