See this picture? This is happening right now, at the end of my driveway. I stepped out to walk the dog this morning and was greeted by this riot of joy, not ten steps from my house. All the pinks, all the life. The Universe just showing off.
But this is also happening right now – two friends are grieving the recent loss of their cherished pets, a third has spent the last month sitting with someone who was dying and a fourth friend, who has been living with cancer for several years, is in the ICU after a difficult operation.
And these are just the people that I know. I can’t even begin to fathom the suffering that is happening outside my tiny circle of acquaintances.
The blogger and activist Glennon Doyle says that life is like this – brutal and beautiful in equal measures – “brutiful,” she calls it.
And she’s right. This week alone, I went from having lunch with my favourite aunt and uncle who showered me with love like it was confetti, to texting with a friend about how to arrange for palliative nursing care. On Tuesday, I spent some time with a passel of six year olds, playing my ukulele and teaching them to sing “Obladi, Oblada, life goes on…” in joyful, shouty voices, and then on Friday, I walked on eggshells all day waiting for updates on a life saving surgery.
Sometimes I just don’t know what to make of all of this.
But I do know these things –
I know that nurses and doctors and hospice workers are the greatest evidence I’ve ever seen of the fundamental goodness of humanity. Whatever we are paying them, it is not enough.
I know that whenever you have the chance to sing with six year olds, you should always take it. There is a euphoria in their sweet faces and their tiny voices that is contagious and restorative.
And I know that later, when the wind blows, I’m going to stand under the flowering tree at the end of my driveway and let the pink blossoms fall on my head like blessings and I will be grateful. For everything.
P.
P.S. Ram Dass says that ultimately, we’re all just walking each other home. If that is the case, I say we all hold hands to make each other feel a bit safer.