It always amazes me. This circle of life thing. How little puffs of life’s circumstances, bits of passages, happen concurrently; some even colliding into each other, or paralleling along the paths. One happy thing happens while another spirals down into an abyss…
Dylan’s “Grains of Sand” struck me as just the words I needed to color in the feelings of it all. How time and each moment of time is “…like a sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.” Precious, elusive increments gone practically before they arrive. Ephemeral little sparks of energy not to be missed. All to be savored; each to be appreciated and then released.
Each swift time passage as unique as the numbered hair: The joy of friends celebrating a brand new grandchild and in the same week their deep sorrow in burying an elderly loved one. Another longtime friend of mine struck down by a truck while she was simply crossing the street. A delightful woman of joy and beauty and rainbows of color, she is now thankfully and amazingly alive but bedridden and broken from head-to-toe and fighting to find her laughter again. And then the unthinkable courage of a mother relating her precious eight-year-old son’s battle to stay alive through the horror of the cancerous demon suffocating him. She begged us on Facebook—friends and total strangers—to pray for a miracle to save Gage (“Fighting for Gage”) and then when he begged her to let him go to Heaven, she asked us to pray that he be released of his struggle. Blessedly, that just happened. And now, another mother is reaching out to us for her little girl, “A Tale of Bella” and the prayers continue. Other stories of animals rescued and abandoned and performing heroic efforts prove to us all that they are not merely our equals, but in so many ways our superiors. Our angels. As are the animal-rescuers who fight to keep them alive.
My sister had to put her beloved old dog down in that dreaded ritual of release, and hours before she heard some encouraging words about her career that gave her hope along with her sorrow. Pete and I were stuck in a terrible traffic jam the other day as we headed for a beautiful gathering with friends to celebrate a Bris, the ancient Jewish ritual of honoring the little boy’s eighth day of life. And while we sat in that morass of unmoving cars we saw the blinking of police cars up ahead and streets being cordoned off. When we finally arrived at the home of our friends we found out that the traffic was both for the visiting Dalai Lama speaking nearby and also a traffic fatality of a cyclist. The Dalai Lama, a dying man, and an infant whose spirits lifted into that circle of mortality, like an inhale and exhale…
Life and death. Death and life. All played within moments from each other. All happening simultaneously and in layers. A few days before, Pete and I were able to enjoy a brief Sunday afternoon escape together along the soothing sands and foaming waves of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, while shore birds soared above us and families gathered in play temporarily free of all cares. Later, I bought myself gratitude flowers in honor of my son, Jesse’s birthday. And this weekend if I’m so blessed I’ll continue my flower ritual for my other son, Ethan’s birthday. And I just say “thank you” over and over again for this gift of time to savor every wondrous grain of life. As fleeting as minuscule bits of sand sifting through an hourglass…
