The tapestry of life
is woven through
the gift of time.
Most times my dreams fall on the bizarre side, but sometimes those self-told bedtime stories are more like messages delivered on starlight under dark of night. Rarer still is when those illuminating messages are crystal clear. My dream last night … Well, I likely have the full moon to thank for that.
Yesterday, after a long day, I nestled into a welcoming pillow, my head heavy and tired from the day’s mental burdens. How is it that I can often reach out to connect with others only to have my calls fall on deaf, preoccupied hearts. Why is it a friend can’t see my offer to help is not me being intrusive, but instead an offering of hands to lift them up and help them soar. And then there’s the self-disappointment that it took news of a loved one’s sudden and threatening illness for me to let them know they’d been on my mind. So often our frantic pace and selfish perspectives keep us from seeing and appreciating what’s been there all along.
But this morning I woke, fresh from a dream. In it, two women sat opposite each other at a long, benched table. The room was expansive and open, with walls barren and white, its large checkerboard tile floor scattered with tables waiting to serve their own tale. The younger woman relayed her frustrations about wasting time and effort on others. A common acquaintance was being given an addictive medication and, despite the woman’s cautioning words and attempts to help, the patient could not see the effects and risks of the drug. “I’m just so tired of spending time trying to help him!” she exclaimed. At which point the older, wiser attendant sternly but lovingly countered, “But you don’t understand; time is what all of this is about — here, this dimension, is the only place where you can experience the gift of time.”
The bold clarity of her statement was like the snap of a finger, waking me from a slumber in more ways than one. Minutes later, I opened the cabinet to grab a cup for my morning coffee. There, front and center, was my “Woman of God” coffee cup, a treasured gift and reminder, given by my sister-in-law’s mother. Sadly, Linda had recently died after a brief battle with an aggressive cancer. As I reached for the cup, it was as though Linda’s soul used that contact connection to replay and relay her take on the moral of my dream’s story. Undeniably, her gift of time had abruptly ended long before she hoped to be done. There I stood frozen as tears washed down my face. I had long intellectually known but now felt it at the cellular level: once our time in human form ends, the ability, the opportunity to connect, and through that connection make a difference for others, it too will end.
As unanchored, unbounded souls, we may only know and emit love, but in the human experience, all that surrounds us, each person and encounter that touches our day — moment by moment — is a unique gift all our own, never to be known or experienced again.
And so, it is in the reaching out and the reciprocal acknowledgment that rich lives are sewn. Through caring, sharing, teaching, and learning, even of the painfully sweet, we tighten the weave and the colorful bonds that connect our souls here and beyond. The most beautiful part …. The gift of time we give each other helps protect us from falling through the tapestry’s gaps.
© 2022 HSE
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