You never know the future, do you?
This morning we found out that a really lovely person we know was murdered. For nothing, really, The person (or people) that took his life wanted his new car. Here he was waiting for the next two weeks to slip by so that he could peacefully retire and live out his happy life. It didn’t happen. I keep thinking of him and his family, wishing them peace.
In my heart I go to that place that tells me that his work here was finished. As my best friend always says, everything is divinely right. Yes. Although I believe that’s true, my mind challenges my heart by reminding me that we are all a breath away. A blink away. A wave and a smile goodbye. Flash… and it’s gone.
For the first time in my life I can honestly say that I am loving the way I am destined to. I am living the way I feel is genuinely, and for that matter, divinely right. It is all in line. Not perfect, but real. It’s flowing without regard to what it looks like to anyone else. Pure. Free. Real.
Whenever you lose someone in your life you re-assess. This evening I said goodnight to a family who makes me happier and more fulfilled than I have ever been in all my (almost) forty years. Each one of them have been my gift. My reward perhaps. My everything.
I tend to see life, and more so death, as random. You never know when the end is, even when it’s obvious it’s not far ahead. Sometimes I think the best we can do is to keep breathing, thinking and doing, and let everything else happen as it does and will, whether we’re observant or not, and focused on something else.
I had a friend and boss in a similar situation who died the year he planned to retire. He suffered a series of strokes and a heart attack coming back from his last vacation. His death made me think to plan to retire when I could and still enjoy life.
I had dear friend who died from a heart attack in his sleep in his hotel room at a conference. He was a generous and gregarious professor who always smiled even when you really didn’t appreciate what he did (never mean, just imposing), and you never harbored anger with him because it and he was always fun (long story about Yardangs).
And my brother died at the age of 48 (1991) from his second heart attack. We were polar opposites in almost every aspect of life but we also seemed to know each other better than anyone else. He’s the one person I remember the day to celebrate his gift of being my older brother every year (long story about a typical dysfunctional family).
Thanks for reminding me life and death are parts of life and our life, even when we aren’t ready and don’t expect it. Just more threads in the coat of our life.