My granddaughter is looking me in the eye at the moment with such a look of endearing entreaty, I fear I cannot spend but a few moments writing today. Go amid your day and remember to hold dear to your heart the people in your life. Tell them you love them – with words or deeds or silent embrace; a prayer, a thought, a smile, a kindness – a text, a selfie… Therein is the joy, the treasure, the warmth in this life. Not the stepping here or there on the paths we take, so much as the people who are on the path we are on. Don’t let the people in your life pass you by. Especially the children. They are children for such a little while. Before you know it, they are adults, sharing your life in a much different way. Just as “present” in a more absent way and needing love as much as when they were first born. Love. Love your people. The end result isn’t the journey; and the journey isn’t the goal. It’s the process; the walking and talking and hugging and loving as we go; the how we get from the journey’s beginning to its end. And even though we are trained to think the "why" of our journey is about rising in a materialist, accumulation-of-trophies kind of world that makes the "why" a "what", the real "why" of the process is the “who”. It takes some of us a lifetime to figure that out. Reach out and love. I’ll leave you with a poem:
Life Cycle/Love Cycle
Silent petals fall to the ground…as one lost to us fades in memory.
Soft footfalls – a reminder that life still carries on.
People to love and be loved by.
Bleeding Hearts – need love
Hearts of stone – need love
Singing hearts – thrive on love
I hear children laughing: life.
Screams in the night – who needs love?
The victim or the perpetrator – both need love.
Whispers, the sound of new life coming,
newborns to fulfill their days
Shouts of exaltation – energy, joy, vibrant eyes,
seeking to climb, scale, LIVE!
The elders, life seeping from them, adjusting,
yet growing inside – still need love.
Let the wind rustle the leaves of the trees
Let the sun shine brightly in its time
And let us all live,
all reach out our arms,
and hold whoever needs and gives love.
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