I had the most horrid stream of dreams last night. No matter how many times I woke myself to shake it off, I would just drift right back in to the very same nightmare. My oldest child was given one year to live. This was the dream I kept dropping in to ALL NIGHTLONG. I woke up with knots in my stomach and tears on my pillow.
But as the day unfolded I began to see perhaps the message my dreaming world was hoping to stick to me. And it’s about living beside my children in a way that validates that this very moment will be showing up once and once only as we all slowly march toward out last days here on the planet. Now that can be seen as a bit morbid at first glance but when you pull it apart it is in fact a lot more celebratory.
When I knew my dad was dying, I paid a whole different kind of attention to how I was being in his presence. The things that might have irritated me fell to the sidelines as I knew our moments where running out faster then I would choose, I could see the sands in the hour glass reaching their end. Details became much crispier, the lines on his face, the strength of his hugs, the words he spoke had a vibrance to them that promised to secure themselves in my mind for a time beyond his life. I paid attention to details that had I not been so keenly aware of threatened to fall away. And I shared a shit load more love with him then I might have if he was at full health.
Take this in to my life with my children and my haunting dream. Even though my children are in full health it’s worth living as if our time is running out. Cause as most parents will agree, this whole business of raising children, even with it’s tough moments passes in an instance. And it is the stuff to be missed with every heart string once it is over. My time with them is ending, each day brings me closer to that. My son makes a meal for himself now about once a day, heis total dependence on me for food ends. My sons steps out on to the ice and I walk away, his need for me to always hold his hand is over.
So it makes only the most sense to live the shit out of our time together in the same way one would if they new their days were numbered. It means that when they irritate me I can let it fall to the sidelines and choose instead to see the parts of them that melt my heart. Or when for the tenth time in a day I find a spilled glass of water on the carpet, I can clean it up with a smile knowing I will miss this one day. I can also choose in every interaction to love deeper. To make sure my words are of the sort that lift them up and not the sort that knock them down. I can find ways, little tiny ways, every single day to show them they are worth going out of the way for. I can make sure we laugh together. I can find ways to make each day a memory they can pull up when the rest of the world seems like a dark and dreary place. I can tell them stories over and over again about who they were at different stages of their lives so they will always feel seen and understood, even when I’m not there to tell the story. I can celebrate the moments with them that might pass unnoticed. I can make sure that I am living with them as if our time is running out, because it truly is.
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