As I woke this morning before the alarm, I rolled towards Marina – her eyes opened as I stirred and as we have been doing recently we asked each other “did you sleep okay?”
Our answers are predictable recently “not great” we have been saying – our morning is the time when we measure yesterday by how we slept and then in that – dread the day ahead.
I closed my eyes and tried to steal a few more moments of the morning but my mind would not allow rest, just as gloom had tried to steal the night before. The more I thought the more I was scared of what the future would bring.
Then the gloom faded as my thoughts shifted and a peace lay over me.
After a few moments of living in a grief I did not want, I stopped and turned back to Marina and said “you know I have said lousy for a long time, but really it isn’t – the truth is for a while now I have felt calmness when all around me seems chaotic. I just know now it’s all okay!”
She smiled and reached across the bed and cradled my arm in her hand and we closed out eyes and stole a few minutes together.
Is it what I see that decides my fate or is it that I am prepared to be open too that guides me?
~
My dear friends Eric and Paula got great news today. Paula has been suffering a difficult medical condition for years; at times it is debilitating and horribly painful.
You all know Paula or someone like her, she is the one that does not show her anger, her fear or her despair – she is the one who smiles with you and makes fun or herself – she is one of the finest people I know. Paula is the best of us.
Eric is the man I want to be, he doesn’t just stand by her, he adores her in a way I am not capable of giving – yet. I learn from him every day.
Today they learned a large Pharmaceutical company is giving them medication Paula so desperately needs. It costs is 10 to 20 thousand dollars per dose – you cannot put a price tag on compassion.
Then a few moments later – my old work mate from Canada’s east coast Kate had posted online. She had undergone a battery of conditions and illnesses that humble me – she has been hospitalized for huge stretches of time. And now here just days before Christmas she has discovered that new medication she has been trying is working. Tests show her liver levels are normal.
I messaged Kate and we laughed at fate together.
~
I read these just moments after getting up today – then when I walked to the kitchen Marina was there, and for no reason she came over and hugged me, and I hugged her back.
Albert Schweitzer once wrote “Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.”
Today I realize, we are nothing without each other.
Thank you all
