When Life Smacks You in the Face

So I've been away for a while and with good reason. My 84-year-old dad became very sick on Friday, August 17 and by Monday, August 20 the situation was bleak. So I packed up and flew home to help out. It is amazing how this one small act could help out everyone else in the family. And it was really a small thing for me to do. (It isn't often one can touch so many people you love in such a positive way.)

Dad with the help of countless doctors, nurses and others pulled through and continues to recover in a nursing facility near home. Mom can stay in her own home now and visit him whenever it suits her. I'm now back in Greater Vancouver all safe and sound, and it was upon my return the overall and thorough smack in the face hit me.

It is all too easy to take life for granted. One does the day-to-day things that must be done, sometimes doing the should-be-done things and trying to make time to enjoy the process. But it is so easy to become sloppy and lose priorities. I feel, after some reflection, that I've come out the other side of this incident a wiser person.

A view from my WestJet ride home, so serene

And in the end I see that life is so very much like knitting. (Yeah, what a shock.) Those small 10,000 stitches put together created patiently one at a time can make a small sweater, and so it is with life. Patiently putting together the right activities including sleeping enough, eating well, exercising appropriately, doing the type of work you truly enjoy and feeding the creative spirit can all contribute to a long, happy and productive life. If any one of these activities is neglected, as in knitting, the whole thing can be thrown out of kilter.

I know my family members were all so very appreciative that I came back to help make this chapter in our long lives together a bit easier. What they didn't understand is that I had to do it to keep my life forces aligned. An act they see as being generous was in the end very selfish and so simple to do. It was the right thing to do at the time.

Dad, I wish you a continued and speedy recovery. I will not thank you for becoming so seriously ill, but I do thank you for helping remind me the importance of doing the right things day after day. You have and it is that consistency that helped you through this bout with life.

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