When was the last time that you shared a moment with someone and you knew, this is our goodbye? Did you take a pause to honor that situation or that person, why or why not? Do you have any lingering regrets?
Recently, I’ve begun meditating on the transitory nature of moments – how they pass away so quietly and we often don’t recognize in that brief span of time that it is the final time. We assign no goodbyes to mark the occasion. They just slip away quietly, relegated to the recesses of our memories. As a friend recently mentioned to me, one day was the last day you went outside to play with the neighborhood kids. Or, as I thought, when is the last time that a child requests a hug or a kiss, or a wave goodbye? When is the last time we see a certain place, or a group of friends or colleagues? I suspect that while some of these moments, a job transition, a death, moving away, all have a definitive end, far more fall into that other category, just silently fading away.
One day, without realizing it, there will be a final blog post, and this site here will be shut down, the domain and upgrades not renewed, and the articles and musings will disappear. Today isn’t that day, but, the reality is that it’s coming, someday. Goodbyes are inevitable. I don’t know about you but since I can’t undo those moments, those relationships, that weren’t honored with a proper goodbye, it makes me all the more eager to live in a state of awareness of the present, to cherish each moment, each person that enters my life (however briefly) and to try not to cling too tightly, for who knows when that passing moment will be the last?
If you could go back, would you hold that child just a smidgen tighter, longer? Would you savor that meal that much more? Linger a few more moments with that friend, before rushing off home or to your next engagement? Hold their hand a while longer? Embrace every moment, my anonymous readers, and take care.
Lauren Miller 