A little life....

 

 

"Each day is a little life."

Schopenhauer

 

Why do we say... "my life is terrible", or "I don't know what to do with my life", or "my life is not the way I thought it would be"?

 

We are the only ones who can make it different. Why moan?

 

I remember a woman, a perfect stranger, coming and sitting next to my sister and I and my then two year old daughter, just 24 hours before my Mother died.

 

We had left the hospital for just a short time, having held long vigils there while Mum drew ever more laboured breaths, the cancer within her, slowly stealing her from us. Sitting in a local food court, we just kind of stared at each other mutely, knowing she was not with us for much longer.

 

What possessed this woman I cannot say, but she plonked herself down at our table, and opened a random conversation with 'I've had a terrible life.' She then waffled on without drawing breath about her (admittedly) sad life to that day, and waited expectantly (I presume) for us to heap sympathy upon her.

 

I was so shocked and so consumed with my own grief that I just stared at her open mouthed.

 

My sister, who can be more forward than I in some circumstances, simply said 'At least you've got your life. Our Mum is so sick, she'll probably be dead this time tomorrow', and gathered up her things and mine, looked hard at me to gather up my daughter, and we walked off without looking back.

 

I do not know or care what the womans response was.

 

But it's a lesson, isn't it.

 

Your life is today.

 

Today is all you have.

 

You can't change what's done, and you can't project yourself into the future and meddle there either.

 

Today is it.

 

Do something today that reflects the life you want.

 

Read a better book, turn off the TV, paint, write, meditate, plan, walk, eat better, love more, forgive easily, practice random acts of kindness, attend a church service, say sorry, hug someone who needs it, smile at strangers, thank someone, allow a busy Mum or frail or disabled person in front of you in the queue, volunteer, phone a long lost friend, rekindle your relationship, be kind to yourself and others, make friends with a neighbour, make a gift, pot a plant, plant a tree, grow some vegetables, love your children, apologise, write a letter, sew something, mend something, make something, make do.

 

What's stopping your from having your life today?

 

What's on your Tray of Bliss?

No cost gifts from the heart 3....

Dig up all of those photos you couldn't frame or use for scrapbooking because they're out of focus or not centred or someone looks a bit goofy. I've used this one where my daughter, who was about 18 months old at the time, was trying to put on my sunglasses.

I'd just been taking photos of the gorgeous gardens where we'd been picnicing, and hadn't thought to manually focus on her before taking the shot. So although the garden bed in the background is crisp and clear, the otherwise cute photo has languished in my collection ever since.

I've now resurrected it, and will frame it side by side in a frame, with a little story about how the photo came about. There are other photos from the same day, framed in our hallway, so it will also be a way to tell her how those came to be.

Just a moment in time, but at 12, a precious reminder of how little she once was.

You could even simply enfold this in a handwritten letter and it would still be treasured.

...Mama Guardian...

No cost gifts from the heart...

"One day, I'll give you the moon in a jar.

The sky on a platter.

And the ocean in a pool of glassy blue.

Until then, know that I love you."

Print the picture out, paste onto some cardstock, hand write the verse inside.

No cost, hug inspiring gift.

...Mama Guardian...

Celebrating Christmas without a loved one....

 

This is my Mums constellation. It's called the Jewel Box.

 

We nominated this 'her' constellation as she always had a fascination with the heavens and the mythology of the stars. On clear evenings, I love sitting on our back deck, searching the night sky for her. The stars wink at me, and I feel her hands on my shoulders.

 

This will be our tenth Christmas without her.

 

Some of you may be celebrating your first, fifteenth or fiftieth Christmas without someone dear to you.

 

Significant days like Christmas, birthdays, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and other celebrations take on a new poignancy when someone you love is missing, absent or has passed away.

 

 

 

It's hard not to immerse oneself in the pain of loss and grief. I remember someone telling me the pain lessens, and the weight of the grief becomes easier.

 

I didn't believe them.

 

I moaned, I wailed, I rocked back and forth, hugging myself as Mum had always hugged me when things went wrong. I did that for a very long while.

 

Then one morning, just before I opened my eyes from slumber, I heard my Mums voice say 'C'mon Darling, chop-chop, there's a new day out there. Aren't you going to put on some lippy?'.

 

I wasn't surprised. This was something she'd said to me, when she was here. Why wouldn't she say it to me now? It was the most natural thing in the world.

 

From time to time,when I am having an internal struggle with something, I'll hear her voice in my ear just before I wake, just as I did then. Always full of gentle advice. And then I'll feel a flutter, brushing my hand or my foot or my brow, like a moth or a firefly.

 

 

 

I know then, that she is with me, guiding me and smiling proudly when I do well.

 

From time to time, I'll see or hear something that I know is a message from her. A pod of Dolphins breaking the surface of the water at our favourite seaside getaway (she always joked she'd come back as a Dolphin), a butterfly coming to a prolonged rest on my hand, a whisper through the branches of the tree we planted in honour of her sixtieth birthday, jingling the wind chime that once adorned her back verandah.

 

I don't know what you believe, but I think the souls of loved ones can be carried between this life and the next. I believe that when you really need to hear that persons voice, they will speak to you. If not in your waking life, then perhaps while you sleep.

 

I have vivid and lengthy conversations with my Mum, in dreams that are so real, that I am genuinely surprised to wake from them. In these dreams I know that Mum has passed on, but accept that she is there to tell me something. Inevitably she imparts some words of wisdom, and then I'm awake.

 

I almost certainly find that I am then able to resolve some thus far unresolveable issue or conflict in my life.

 

Often we fly together, dipping and lifting again. She believed in Astral travel too, so who's to say we're not doing exactly that...

 

 

Trust in yourself and in the deep love you shared or still share, with your absent loved one.

 

Know that if nothing else, they live on in our hearts and minds and are always with us.

 

The bonds of love cannot be broken. Not by death or disappearance or absence of any kind. They stretch like a silken web and enfold us when we need it most.

 

 

 

Be still. Be very, very quiet. Breathe.

 

Your loved one is near.

 

Can you feel them?

 

Is that their whisper on the breeze, their palm in yours as you drift off to sleep, their favourite bloom inexplicably more beautiful this season telling you they are at peace and with you always?

 

I choose to believe so.

 

Perhaps you do too.

 

Be at peace this Festive Season.