Have You Thought About Living Today?

We were having dinner when it happened. We were doodling with crayons on the brown paper table covering and I was complaining that my fish was overcooked and just down the road somebody was dying while I reduced the importance of my own living to the crunchy crust on my restaurant fillet.

I was being ungrateful while a life was ending in a rolled car.

It was two days before I even knew.  Two days before I heard why we'd been rerouted along back roads when we'd tried to go home. Two days before I realized the seriously injured driver was a man I knew - a boy I grew up with - that it was his wounds that had him airlifted away and it was his love who spilled her life across the highway I travel almost every day.

And it tears at my heart.

Because though he's really just somebody that I used to know I still knew him and that somehow makes it more real and raw.

I burst into tears on the way to work today. I was half listening to the radio and enjoying the fall colours when I realized I was at the scene of the crash. People had placed flowers and there was this beautiful peach coloured cross and I couldn't hold it back - the ugly sob that was wrenched from my throat - and my eyes blurred and I nearly had to pull over.

I took a few minutes in the parking lot to compose myself and I was late walking into staff meeting.  "How are you?" And I couldn't hold it back and I couldn't form enough words to say what my heart felt and there I was, a salty puddle crying at the conference table.

Life is precious. Why do we forget that so easily? Why should it take a tragedy to remind us that we need to cherish each moment we have?

That man? He is the same age as me - it happened right down the road from where I was - that could have been me, trapped upside down and begging begging begging for my love to respond and dying dying dying inside when there was nothing...

How can we remember?

How can we make each day count?

How can we treasure up each precious moment so we have enough to sustain us when the time comes?

Have you thought about living today? Have you let the wind carry a prayer - a thank you for breath and life and reminders? Have you said 'I love you' or hugged your dearest?

{This is my most favorite song for moments of sorrow when all I need is a little 

permission to be sad and a little hope to cling to. Listen on YouTube}

May you hold tight to what matters and never take a moment for granted!