It's shocking when something unexpected, something sudden, happens to uproot your whole notion of things. As in: "yesterday was like this, and today, well now today is suddenly not like I planned...and it feels uncomfortable, maybe it hurts a little or maybe it builds me up so I'm taller than the highest tower...but I wasn't ready for it and I didn't see it coming. Shoot. I don't like it. And now I have had a reality check."
Here's my something:
A friend of mine died yesterday. Someone my age that I knew really really well and was really really close to at one point in my now-seemingly short life...is gone. Maybe I had temporarily put this person in the archives of my mind, not forgotten but no longer though of..but I immediately draw him back out and remember his significance to me. In the time and place, it was huge. The idea of this person having left the earth and the physical plane to exist in that other, higher(?) place feels incomprehensible. Feels foreign. Like I just can't wrap my brain around the notion.
Yet it swiftly jolts me to a place where time is completely fleeting, unknown, beyond control. Life throws those wrenches to remind us of this I guess...to refocus our sensibility to the side of the spectrum that touts love, respect, appreciation, and the concept of treasuring people, memories, places, experiences. It's easy to drift to spectrum-side that's not so appealing, kind or optimistic, isn't it?
And so, although I feel sad at the unexpected, today I will refocus my somber and off-put feelings from this unfortunate life-wrench as I remember my friend and our times shared, our memories, our experiences...and deliberately thank the cosmos for the fortunes in my life, for the people around me with whom I share love, and for the chance to breathe today, to ride my bike, to paint, hear music, and write this little blog if I want to...because I had a
nother day of living. At the same time, I'll brag about my friend just a little, because he was kind, humble, loving, protective, ambitious, and sweet, and really didn't have to go just yet. He'll certainly be missed by those who got to enjoy those aspects of him in their daily lives.Tim Burke, you will be missed.
Today, acknowledge the uncertainty of time and tell someone who matters to you that they do, just in case you happen not to have another chance.
