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| (Tingle ranch right before a huge thunder storm--beautiful despite or possibly because of the storm . . .) |
I fell asleep last night as I was about to write my day's beautiful thing (it was a beautiful thing in itself--one of those sleeps that sneaks up on you and steals you away without you even really knowing it--and lasted nine uninterrupted hours)
I am changed with this week's intention of finding a beautiful thing in each day. I hold and examine every seemingly insignificant part of my day and ask over and over, Is THIS the beautiful moment? I've realized that by focusing so carefully, I've been living quite differently and deliberately all day long. Each day is full of challenges, daily, sometimes hourly challenges. And they, I have come to realize have their own beauty as well.
Which is why yesterday's beautiful thing was a bitter hard beauty.
It happened when I ran into my parents house after a cold walk with my sister (which was really really good) and found my mother doubled over in pain. Shaking and pale and unable to function well. I sat down beside her and felt--how I've felt on many many occasions and know I will feel again on many more--like I desperately wanted to take some of her pain for her. I am younger and stronger and I can bear it. But I couldn't. So I held her arm and asked her about what exactly was going on and calmly told my father that she needed to go to the hospital right now.
She was not happy nor was he, but there was a sense of resigned rightness about it. All of us knew, in that moment, it was the right choice. And as I watched her walk, so slowly and with great difficulty and pain to get dressed and ready to go, I felt the connection of love of the generations.
As I left, I knew that this is the pattern we will all follow and that as we age, things, treasures and trophies and accomplishments, they fade away to nothing. But the love of our family, how ever that looks, becomes the most beautiful thing we have.
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