Life and Awareness

I
In the winter, when I was very young, I would curl up, as small as I could, next to the bathtub as it filled with water. There wasn’t yet central heat in our home, and the little bathroom was a room without that luxury. The house was heated by coal delivered down a chute and onto the cellar floor, that was then hand-shoveled into the furnace by my Dad. This isn’t a sad or negative memory. It reminds me of the amazing man who chose, loved and protected me and died much, much too young. It’s song is love.

II
On Sunday, I came home from a relaxing week away with dear friends. My granddaughter, an avid reader, gave me one of her books to read on vacation, knowing it would be something that moved me. In the story, people are called by a member of “Death-Cast,” and given notice that in less than twenty-four hours they’re going to die. How their imminent death will take place isn’t disclosed, but the people with the imminent expiration stamp confront their pasts, and more importantly, with how to “spend” their last hours on earth.

III
Yesterday, I put two posts on the facebook page I created for my high school class. Both were tough to write because they shared the news about deaths of fellow classmates. Despite my bother’s passing when he was only forty years old, talking about death regularly, and being fully aware that as we’re living we dying, it’s still, sometimes, hard to wrap my head around this question: Is what I’m doing with my time relevant; does it allow me to live into my highest self aware of what truly matters?

How would you spend the last hours of your life if you knew your earthly end was imminent? There are times when I forget to remember and plow full steam ahead with something that I’ll, someday, understand, really didn’t matter. I’ll fumble around, and mess up, and be too sensitive or too afraid of the dark (visual, mental and emotional). Yet, I’ll still believe that God keeps listening even when I don’t speak and and keeps answering even when I don’t hear. And I know that even when I’ve been on the floor broken, even when I felt like I wouldn’t be able to move forward, and even when I questioned whether there even was a God, I was given the grace to take one more step.

Awareness is a beautiful gift. It turns the mundane into the magnificent, and existence, instead of merely melting into a pre-prescribed pulse, becomes sacred and overflowing. What if we choose to slow down and remember those we love who have moved on to the spirit realm? And, what if we consider how how we want to live our lives, how we’d want to live our last hours, and how we can invite peace and joy and intention into every day?

May you be blessed,
Kay

Blog: peacefullhome.com
Twitter:@kaymclane
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