Here and Now............ and Remembrance

Today the 'practicalities' of the moment came into being. Paperwork, short journeys and 'phone calls - the making and receiving of, there were so many 'things to do' and such an early start to the day. The strength of women has been on my mind a lot today.When someone close dies and we are there with them, there is something difficult and profound taking place. Nothing can be done except to 'accept' everything which is happening in the moment. 'Acceptance' I think, is one of life's most challenging spiritual practices. What if every person in the world tomorrow stopped praying for 40 days and practised 'acceptance' each of those days instead. I wonder what changes might come about in each person and in our world? In the sacred moment of 'being' in the 'now' there is for me, ironically, a strong sense of deja vu. I remember the first time of being with a dying person, I think I was about 15 years old, 10 years after my father's death, (my intial intitiation into into an underworld I knew nothing about). Such clear memories of that green painted side ward and the light above his bed, our regular visits in those final weeks and days, the sound of the oxygen mask and the physical transformation of his wasting frame - we waited and waited. He had been our friend since we were small. I think it must have been in the early hours, it was so dark - his light went out and my life changed in all the sorrow of that moment. It happened again, some 15 years later. This time at his home. It was a long night, his breathing so laboured after the years of illness. Sitting with him overnight and late morning the following day, his breathing stopped. I still miss him.