“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just matter of paying attention to this miracle.”
~ Paulo Coelho
Living with a preschooler makes it easier to find miracles on a daily basis – she has not yet forgotten that everything is amazing.
Here, in the shade, tenacious droplets of light, some no larger than a quarter, fell on these flowers like little spotlights from heaven. I wouldn’t have noticed these flowers without my daughter’s influence.
She really wasn’t interested in the flowers at all, but she believed that this dark area under the tree would be the best place to find fallen leaves and twigs to make a nest for the birds.
It’s warmer these days, but still quite cool in the shade. Too cool for me. I would’ve found a warmer spot, but I was following my daughter around. Once she started digging for bugs, I knew we were going to be there for a while. I needed to find a way to entertain myself.
It wasn’t until I decided to find a way to enjoy the shade that I noticed the flowers.
I had heard there were sea lions around Seattle, but in the 21 years that I’ve lived here, this was the first time I saw them – during a harbor cruise around Elliott Bay.
On April 15, 2013, terrorists detonated two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, and many others were seriously wounded.
There have been several occasions in my life where chaos and violence shifted my perception of time, even if I was physically far from the event. Time slows down, speeds up, sometimes feels like its hiccuping or repeating itself as we hit refresh over and over and over again on the browser, or the same scenes are replayed by each of the major networks. But these aberrations in my sense of time, and in my sense of safety, never stopped the sun from going down at the end of the day – and never stopped the sun from rising the next morning.
A new day, with a new set of challenges, including the challenge of wrapping my head around yet another wave of violence. But that fresh start is also an opportunity for a fresh perspective, for evolving the way I look at the situation, and the world.
This morning, it was the sunrise that woke me up. Our bed is on the west side of our home, but for a brief minute the rising sun lasered it’s way through the balcony, through our living room, down the hall, and across my bed on the far side of our bedroom. The precision required to get the light across that space is remarkable, with maybe an inch of leeway. I know the light did not have a will of it’s own, but it sure felt like it was trying to get my attention.
The sun always rises
The sun always rises. But it’s not really rising, is it? The sun stays in the same place, and we revolve around it. It’s our changing perspective, in the physical sense, that brings the sun back into our little corner of the world each morning.
In the moments when the world seems dark and evil, it’s a change in my perspective that shifts my attention to the light.
As a child, I was taught that all people are evil at their core, but I no longer believe that is true. I believe most people don’t want to hurt anyone. In fact, I believe most people would go out of their way to avoid causing physical harm to another person. I believe most people want to be helpful. I believe most people want to do good. I believe that right this minute, people from all over the world are praying for Boston, and for the victims and their family members. I believe that when I small handful of people do something evil, a much larger group of ordinary people rise up and perform heroic tasks without even realizing it. They do it because they are there, and it’s the right thing to do. There’s no time to think about whether or not their good actions will be recognized.
Nature always seeks a balance
Yes, there are evil people in this world, and one way or another, they’ll get what’s coming to them. I want them stopped, to prevent another tragedy, but I refuse to invest any of my own limited life in thoughts of revenge. Karma will get them, even if no one else does. Nature always seeks a balance.
In the meantime, I choose to focus on the people healing, and the people doing good. These stories keep reminding me that despite the presence of evil, there is so much hope for the human race.
Patton Oswalt put it beautifully, and again I marvel at how our comedians can cut right to the heart of the matter – Modern day court jesters who speak the truth others are too fearful to say.
To the bad guys: “the good outnumber you, and we always will.” Patton Oswalt
She would have appreciated the fact that she died at 4:20 on April Fools Day. That was our Meesh: If you can’t change the inevitable, then you might as well find a way to have fun with it.
We can also thank her for the fact that for a couple hours at her memorial service, that church housed more boob jobs than a porn convention. That would be us, her sisters in this breast cancer sorority none of us wanted to join; a sorority from which we all gain so much strength and comfort, and even joy.
Most of the time, we don’t pay attention to the way people look at us when we are out together: the surprise when they find out we all have breast cancer, followed by the sad eyes when they realize we are all going to die. We look so normal. We’re smiling, and laughing. How can we be laughing?
The truth is that we are all going to die. So are you. Some of us just happen to be on an accelerated schedule. That’s where Michele’s wisdom helped me the most. Michele had a way of telling her story so that it didn’t terrify the newly diagnosed girls. She would spin the story each time, so it came out with a message, a little moral or lesson to tie up the anecdote like the “you see, Timmy” at the end of each episode of Lassie. She didn’t preach, she just showed us how to call bullshit on bullshit, how to advocate for yourself, how to pick up and move on, and how to focus on what you can change, and how to spend your time and energy on what really matters.
During the service, the Pastor shared Michele’s words. I didn’t write them down as he was speaking, so I must paraphrase, but they really stuck with me:
“Don’t wast your time on people who suck your soul out of you. Life is too short. Invest your life in what matters, because in the end, what doesn’t matter… doesn’t matter.”
I’m still angry that she’s gone. I’m still angry that her young daughters will grow up without her. But Michele would not want us to allow our anger or sadness to diminish the richness of our lives. Michele put so much love and energy and strength and wisdom out into the world; her influence lives on through all of us. Robert Holden said “the real work of our life is to love and be loved,” and the best way we can honor Michele’s memory is to do just that.
Thank you, Meesh, I’m a stronger woman for knowing you.
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