urgency
When things feel urgent, I know that I’m supposed to slow down. When they start to feel frantic, I’m supposed to stop. When I can’t or don’t, the universe has a way of forcing me to pay attention to what is actually urgent.
I’m being presented with a beautifully precious opportunity to show up for one of my most beloved friends at a time that will forever shift her life. Her dad’s health has become critical, very quickly. He’s one of the most physically fit and adventurous, intellectually brilliant, wickedly cynical, lovingly supportive men and fathers I’ve ever known.
The relationship that she and he share has been special to witness. He’s the kind of dad that I wish all young and adult children get to have.
He is about to have emergency surgery to prevent his life from suddenly ending, and then, I pray, she and he will have opportunities in the very fragile future to slow down and stop. To just be. So he can tell her about his life adventures again — there are truly so many that they could have been experienced by fifty dads.
I pray that he is well and present at his younger daughter’s wedding in just two months from now. I pray that he and his son get another outdoor adventure together.
I pray that he has the peace and calm and knowing that his life has been extraordinary. That how he shows up has been the envy of so many of his kids’ friends over the years. That he has planted seeds in all our lives.
I pray that my dear friend takes time to slow down and stop, not just right now, from now on.
Moments like these remind me that life is amazingly beautiful, painfully sad and gloriously mine to do with what I choose. I pray that she comes out of this tunnel with a similar knowing.