Live Now

Embrace today, yesterday is gone, and tomorrow never comes.

Today the sun is shining. Today the daffodil on the porch is turning it's head to the sun. Today it smells like spring, the trees are budding, the birds are tweeting about it. Today my soul sings and desires to create beauty. The earth seems to command me into action by the sensations of spring. Today my children are covered with little pimples. Today I take pictures and try to convince them that tomorrow will bring healing dots.

I laugh knowing that tomorrow will never come, by then today will have arrived.

I laugh too because I have faith that I will never see these ugly pimples again...at least not on them. These pimples are commonly known as chicken pox. But today is now and I am embracing today because it will never be back. But today is so full of so many things. Best of all, I am whole.

I know I am whole, for I remember yesterday. Yesterday to me is three years ago. I did not want spring. I did not want anything to grow, the birds to sing, or the flowers to burst. I did not want to go outside...the absence of my little girl's voice among the flowers and trees was too vivid. I would hear her hollering to her older sister only to realize it is all imagination. My heart, soul, and body were overwhelmed with embracing more territories that my little girl was supposed to live in. She was supposed to be there, yelling at her sister, riding her bike, digging in the dirt, taking off with my gardening tools. I would turn and see her coming out of the playhouse only to realize she is gone. Gone. The yesterday of three years ago was gone. I was living today and I hated it. I felt as if every time I would forget for a minute another memory would be stirred with something as simple as dirt in the back of her favorite toy. Spring was torturing me, eating my heart out. I wanted Kira to be there growing with the flowers. The cold reality of her body instead lying in a casket six feet underground made my stomach turn. Three years later I still grimace when I remember the horrible reality of these feelings.

Now they are yesterday. The horror is gone at least for a fraction of the days time. I live in the reality of today. No they are not pleasant memories but they are part of my life. Just as I embrace the good yesterdays...the traumatic yesterdays have also become a part of who I am and where I am going. This wound has had a softening effect on my heart.

Which hails me back to today. Yes, things that occurred today stirred my memory pot. The scar hurts as if someone has been scratching on it.

An older sister with pimpled remains of three weeks ago was singing gently to a younger sister with bright irritated pimples. The tones were turning softer and higher as the younger miserable sister drifted off to sleep. It caused remembrance of yesterday when another sister lay in the hospital with the older sister singing in angelic tones. My brain still remembers exactly where the form of my body stood behind my grief-laden daughter as I listened, tears coursing like streams of water down my dry cheeks.

Today I embraced the fact that the young son acts so much like his middle sister...the one smiling down from heaven. Embracing was not easy as the husband turned and said "just too much the same". I thanked God for the slight differences between boy and girl.

As for tomorrow; it will take care of itself.

Today I live.

Today I sing because He has set my spirit free...free to live whole again!

Today brings praise to my lips for the mere reality of knowing the difference of whole versus incomplete, painful though it has been.