Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 4

Love was a theme throughout the day today. This year in particular I have been reminded again and again how precious life is. Today seemed full of those reminders. I found out that a friend’s Mother passed away. Really I prefer the idea of transitioning to another form of energy, but that is irrelevant when compared with the loss and grief her family is feeling. Yet, my friend and her family were by their Mother’s side when she surrendered this life. What an amazing and yet difficult gift for them all. To be able to be there, in love and to honor her as she leaves is a wonderful thing, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel wonderful in the midst of it. We have a tendency to have an aversion to the dying and death and yet to hold someone in your heart with love and to send them off onto the next part of their journey with that love surrounding them, what could be more loving than that? So I was glad to hear that my friend had been by her Mother’s side, glad for them both.


I am letting it serve as a reminder to me to appreciate each moment with the people I love, with the warmth of the sun, with the song of the birds, with the laughter of children, with a gentle breeze, with the purr of a cat, with connection to all my human family. Even though I do make a conscious effort to be present in the moment, being human, I don’t always succeed. When my daughters come home from school am I focused on what they are saying the minute they come in and want to share? Not always, sometimes I’m working and only half listening. Do I take a moment to hear the birds when I awake in the morning, or am I too grumpy that the alarm went off so soon? Do I treasure each moment with the people I love? I will be more aware of it now, hopefully. And I don’t mean to get so lost in the appreciation that I’m still not being present, but just the awareness that the simple act of being present with another is a way of appreciating them and the gift of that moment. My heart sometimes reminds me of opportunities I’ve missed with a gentle ache that says, pay attention. I hope to lessen the potentially greater aches of having missed precious moments by heeding the smaller nudges now.