The gift of time

[media-credit id=3 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]Everyone alive knows there are days when just about everything goes wrong.

Other days, somebody makes us mad and we tell the person off in no uncertain terms. We’ve all complained, griped, lamented and whined over one thing or another.

It’s such a human thing to find fault and be ticked off when the things go wrong.

While all the above are true, here’s another thought that keeps popping into my psyche:

Every single day we have is a gift to be cherished – unwrapped and adorned with the beauty of promise and possibility.

When my late mother used to bring in the morning paper, the first page she’d read would be the obituaries. At the time, I thought that was quite morose.

Today, I think differently. Opening our morning paper, guess what page is one of the first I read? Yep, the obits.

Time has run out for the people there. Their gigs on Earth are up.

Thinking about the preciousness of each day of life is something we do as we grow older. When we’re young the concept of life running out is quite alien. Youth think they have all the time in the world.

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As the years tick by, however, we realize we’re not always going to be around. Every day we wake up and realize we are still alive and have 24 sweet hours ahead of us is a good day.

Each day is to be cherished and savored like a fine, rare and expensive wine.

I’m so happy to be alive, aren’t you? Despite all the difficulties and yes, even sorrows, that come our way, it’s still good to wake up and be on the planet Earth.

I love looking at huge pine trees, the sky at sunrise, birds at the feeders and tiny footprints in freshly fallen snow.

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Hearing music of just about any kind as well as babies and children laughing are more incredible gifts.

Listening to a harp, soft guitar, violin or piano can move me to tears.

The sight of an exquisite velvety pink rose makes my heart ache with delight.

Bread baking in the oven, fine perfume, church bells ringing from a distance and the soft fur of our old grandmother cat all touch my heart in a special way and make me realize how lucky I am to experience each of them.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer in her late 80s, she defied all odds of imminent death. A diagnosis of a few months left to live stretched out to a couple of years. Her will to live was very strong.

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Even toward the end of her life, at age 91, one of the last things I remember her saying is, “If only I could have one more year to live.”

My late father had a very wry and, to me, hilarious sense of humor. If someone we knew died and we cried over the death, he’d cut our sorrow quickly with these words:

“What are you crying for? What the hell’d you think, he was going to live forever?”

We’d inevitably burst out laughing with that remark. After all, nobody is around indefinitely.

Now, I know my own life on earth is not going to go on forever, but I’m awfully glad I have the gift of today. Aren’t you?

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on February 28, 2013. Filed under Columns,From the Heart,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry