The word prompt for the day is TIME.
As I have gotten older it is becoming more clear that time is flashing before my eyes.
The grand children are getting older, friends are aging, even I am aging.
Turning sixty was not a ‘hard’ moment for me, but I feel like I am rounding out the ‘last part’ of life in much different way, I wish to be more intentional.
A year or so ago we were sitting in a room with a dying man. It was quiet. We were all in our thoughts.
It is a sacred kind of place to be in when life is leaving just as it is when life ‘comes’ when we are anticipating and waiting for a new birth.
The moment a baby is born and it takes it’s first breath, the doctor or nurse looks at the clock and it is recorded when time of life began.
Now we all know life begins way before birth, but the moment that baby breathes air, opens the lungs and cries. It is birth.
The same way as the ending of life, and the passing away.
He was in his chair, wrapped in a blanket, and breathing shallow, as we kept each other company with small talk and nervous reactions.
It is a very strange and surreal kind of time to reflect and remember and understand, life will end soon.
The tv was on in a muted quiet tone as the screen flashed a basketball game, and we were in a waiting room.
Just as in an anticipated birth, it happens in death too.
At one point in time I remember one of the ladies in the room suggested we turn the tv off and remain very quiet.
The stimulation of noise interferes with the passing where the spirit struggles to leave the body.
Noise can be a distraction. Just as in a birth, the process of dying takes much concentration and effort.
We were all in the room focusing on one goal, being with him as he passed away.
About an hour after the quiet began we noticed how his breathing changed, life was leaving him and we were there to witness it.
He exhaled and silence came and it was over. His life was ended.
In the moment of time, the paramedics looked at the clock and recorded his time of death.
Just as they do in the moment of birth.
In life and in death we look at the time.
Time… Every hour has the same amount of minutes, every day has the same amount of hours.
What we do with it becomes our legacy, our story and our life message.
At the end of our life, it matters MOST about what we did with those moments and who we cared for.
I will end with a quote from Maya Angelou:
[I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.]
In the end, when the moment in time comes, when they record our time of death.
What others remember about us will be more important than what job we had, what house we lived in or what car we drove.
Time is a gift for us, what we choose to do with that is a choice. I hope we all make a good one.