Stop the clock! Have you ever considered how often we do the same thing at the same time each day? We self schedule our lives even when it’s not necessary.

I’m retired, yet I get up before six am every day. It’s not because I have anything urgent going on. I desire coffee and reading time before any one in the house rises. It’s me and the fur babies. A couple of snuggles with them while the coffee brews and then it’s to love seat with my coffee and book. That’s an ideal beginning to any day for me. My husband always asks why don’t I sleep in. I truly look forward to my quiet time. Life’s to short to not do what gives us joy.

I discovered an interesting read by C.S. Lewis about grieving. His wife died of cancer and the book shares not only his grief but an understanding of love. All of us experience grief differently despite the theory of five stages. This year has determined I will process whether I’m ready or not.

Discovering that I had a mini stroke from one of my migraines forced me to think about life’s shortcomings and blessings. In between the flurry of MRI’s and brain tests, my mother passed and my niece committed suicide. I was shocked at my niece’s choice to end her life. I was relieved my mother passed. My brother took our mother’s passing hard but then he was close to her whereas her and I never had a relationship. If that wasn’t enough to process, my brother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and doesn’t have his mother to help him cope. I’m all he has now.

Life doesn’t schedule inconveniences. It just happens. Like Johnny’s unexpected death in 2019, my son, his father’s determination to lose himself in the clutches of crystal meth. My niece choosing death when her whole life was ahead of her. Cancer claiming another victim in my family. My migraine purgatory added a surprise just to remind me to be in the moment.

So yes, my morning routine has immense joy to me. I’m blessed to enjoy snuggles with my fur babies. I’m blessed to love and be loved by an amazing man. I’m blessed to co-habit with not just my husband but with my daughter and granddaughter in Las Vegas. I’m blessed to have one of my sons moving forward in his life with his family after retiring from a twenty six year stint in the Navy. I pray the other son will make the choice to get help. Nothing I say or do reaches him so what ever happens will happen.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” – Kahlil Gibran

Live in the moment, is all I can do and show my loved ones how much I love them. Lewis reminds us all the power of seeing not only life’s enchantments while not being disenchanted because even with no sense of joy or sorrow life’s intimacy will/does sharply embrace us before eventually restoring us. Simply a matter of believing.

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” – Black Elk