A Moment in Time

     As I drove by the lake on my way home, I noticed the sun going down over the water. The sky was an incredible line of what was blue, red, and gray. It reminded me of the ice cream that comes in three different types in a carton, only this was much more beautiful. The sun was streaming down and its light was reflected off the water as well as the trees that had lost all of their leaves,. This day was unlike many other days in the winter where the sky was just a dull shade of gray. On this day it was a beautiful cloudless sky.  All was still as I glided by in my car and the sun seemed to be chasing me as I made my way home as if to try to catch me before I made it home to see it set for the day. The road was absent of other travelers and the only sound I could hear was the sound of my own car.

      This experience was happening during the pandemic that caused all of us so much fear and anxiety. It also brought an end to so many lives. My first thought was how strange these two things could be happening at the same time, but then I thought about how it is all in your perspective at the moment. I remembered grieving is a lot like this. You so often feel two emotions at the same time. I remember feeling happy for my daughter when she graduated from high school, yet sad her dad was not here to see it. Yet, even as I felt those two opposing emotions, I was grateful to be feeling them, because it meant I was alive and living life.

     During the grieving process in the very beginning, it was not like this. More often than not I felt numb. Often it was necessary in order just to get through a day. Feeling two emotions at the same time was more than I could handle most of the time. This translated into not even noticing the colors in my world. I do not mean this figuratively but literally. For months I was walking around unaware I had only been seeing shades of gray. This awareness came after a March Winter storm, 6 months after my husband’s passing. It is a memory I will never forget, because of the complete change that took place inside my mind. I was routinely shoveling snow the way I always had. I then stopped to take a brief break when the absolute beauty of the scene hit me. I was taken back by the colors and beauty before me. The scene contained a beautiful blue sky against the background of snow-covered leafless trees. It was breathtaking! It was at this point I began to realize all would be ok and hope returned to my mind. I would get through this grief and feel happy again. Once my mind accepted this then I was able to start appreciating small moments again. I cannot tell you from that day forward I never felt grief or sadness again. However, I can say I learned to look at my loss differently. I could look back and appreciate the time I had with my husband as well as how lucky I was to have it. Some people never find love like I had, so I felt lucky to have even found it at all. From there I learned not to take moments like this one for granted. This translated to appreciating the moments I spent with those I loved. It taught me to present in the moments I spent with them, rather than be distracted by other thoughts I might have.  I realized often we see only what we open our minds to seeing. Scenes like the two described above are happening around us all the time and even in our worst moments, we can find beauty.

      As a result of these, realizations,, I was able to appreciate what I saw even as the world around me was dealing with so much loss during the pandemic.  I was able to remember the lesson from that day in March to help me to understand how to navigate through this dark time. Referring back to that March day helped me to realize the sadness, pain, or anxiety I might be feeling was stopping me from seeing all was not as bleak as it seemed. There were moments in these dark days I could appreciate. I just needed to focus my mind on staying in the present moment and focusing on the beauty that was hidden before my eye.

     So often during this pandemic, so many took for granted things around us, because we let Covid 19 be the only thing in front of us. It became the sole focus of our minds. Our grief can also function in this way by closing our minds. Grief like the pandemic brings with it a sense of loss and isolation.   both the pandemic and grief cause us to feel afraid and trapped into thinking each of these things needed to be the center of our lives. With Covid 19 we focused on how to avoid getting it, while grief can cause us to focus only on our loss. Both of these situations can be used to remind us of what things in life are important. Both stop us in our tracks and forces us to slow down our drive for the constant activity which causes us to lose sight of all we have around us. Things we failed to notice before Covid 19 or our loss. It is not the stuff and constant activity which bring us joy, but rather tiny moments that go by in a flash of an eye.

 We need to remember to value and appreciate these lessons not just for trying times like we face during a pandemic or when we are grieving., but also for the times when our lives are free from these things. It is too easy to go get sucked back into the speed of life. So let’s remember to take at least some time every day to stop and appreciate the moment we are living in now. If we do this every day then these trying times and the lessons learned will not have been time wasted.