Awareness And The Spirit

I arrived at work this morning like Bob Cratchit, in a post-holiday rush, behind my time, dithered in the head, fumbling with my keys. I spent the morning trying to catch up on backed-up tasks. But busy as I was, something in my spirit was troubled. As the morning wore on, I realized that I felt a crushing sadness in my very bones. What could be making me feel this way? I thought.

And then it came to me.

Five years ago today, my sister called me at work to tell me that our mother had died.

My memory is not what it once was, but my spirit, my internal guide, sensed something significant about the day. After this epiphany, I felt guilty for an hour or so. How could I have forgotten such a significant anniversary? But then I eased up on myself and tried to look at my own failings as I hope my heavenly Father looks on them.

In the wake of the gloom and then the shock and then the guilt, I feel grateful. Grateful that my spirit is sensitive, grateful for my mother’s life and her gifts to me, and grateful for my own days here.

There will come a day when my own life will end, and all things will continue. This is as it should be. This is as it has been ordered.  And it is a beautiful September day outside, so my spirit lifts in anticipation of walking among the plants and little creatures who are awaiting me back on our little farm, and my wife will be with me, and my heart is glad. Those who believe that blood ties and earthly relationships are transient and ultimately unimportant are wrong. They are wrong, and I know this in my spirit.

~ S.K. Orr