universal truth

Don't take it for granted.  None of it. 

Just when I start to feel disgruntled by life's little inconveniences, forgetting gratitude and grace, something comes along to remind me what's important.  Sometimes it is a small whisper, a warm nudge, sometimes it's a bigger event that propels me out of the doldrums, or sometimes it's an almost violent kick in the pants. 

Sweetpea has had a rough re-entry into school.  She started 2nd grade last week with optimism but not a little apprehension.  In kindergarten and 1st grade she came home from school bursting with enthusiasm for everything - her class, her teacher, her friends.  Excitement overflowed.  This year, her first day was "horrid" (why yes, she is the daughter of an Englishman).  She was teary and worried and overwhelmed.  We meditated that night, breathing in warm sunlight and good thoughts, and blowing out all the frustrations and unhappy events of the day.  It seemed to work, although her bounce this past week has been tempered, as if she is expecting the other shoe to drop.

This morning she woke up with a sunny good morning, and then dissolved into tears when I rebuked her for not getting ready fast enough.  The day was ruined in her mind and I sulkily refused to apologize, behaving not like the parent and adult that I am, but instead like the child.  I was rewarded with the reminder that she is a bigger and better person than I am, as she hugged and forgave and jollied me out of my own dark cloud as we walked hand-in-hand to school.

I came home feeling lighter, but still clinging to malaise - not willing to give up that last bit of the brow-furrowing-got-out-of-bed-on-the-wrong-sidedness.

Only to open my computer and be hit not by a gentle whisper or a warm nudge, but by the punch to the solar plexus breathlessness that a beautiful soul I know through the blogging community had lost her son to the flooding in Virginia yesterday.  I had just visited her blog the night before, admired the back to school photos of her 7th grade son and 5th grade daughter, been inspired by a post which she ended with the wisdom that although we may not get out of life what we thought we signed up for, we are not alone.

I can only hope that she feels that truth, if not now then in the days ahead.  I can't imagine it, but Anna - we are here.  Weeping and aching and wishing time could go backward, perhaps wringing our hands helplessly, but praying and uplifting you and your family from our corners of the world.