December 18, 2007
We all of us have our moments of clarity – little opportunities to see the world that much more vividly. The choice then becomes to seize on that opportunity or to let ourselves slip back into the happy sleep of day to day.
I went to a memorial service on Saturday. It was for a 90 year old woman, who passed away quietly in her sleep. She wasn't ill and had a sharp mind right up until the end, writing for a newspaper column in her native Hanover, NH. An amazing individual, who by the proof of the standing room only at her service, had touched so many lives in her 90 years. It was a sad occasion to see the end of her amazing life, but heartwarming at the very same time to see the ripple effect of that existence.
She wrote a book that compiled her columns called Everyday Matters. The rector of the church punctuated that phrase in two ways, detailing the dual meanings of the words combined. She wrote about everyday matters, the seemingly banal, ordinary details of her world. And yet… the example of her life and her writing proved that every day matters. There is humor and goodness to be found in those ordinary, minute moments. There is something to be said for the celebration of those moments and not the lingering on their opposites.
I suppose it is a time of year conducive to reflection, the gasp of hope to improve as December rounds to a close. But, the two and a half hour drive back from NH did allow that reality to permeate a bit and make me resolve in 2008 to make some more of those everyday matters really matter.
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