For some of you this is a surprise. It is to me as well. And some of you have asked me when I will start writing again or did they get removed from the mailing/subscription list. Truth is it is all on me. Too many reasons to list but some of them involve self-esteem and motivation. But it’s a New Year and every breath brings a new opportunity for growth.

We make choices from the moment we wake up until the time we close our eyes. We choose what to wear; what to have for breakfast; what route to take to work or the gym or the grocery store. Shortest? Least traffic? Most scenic? We choose what to listen to or pay attention to as we drive. (Hopefully the road is primary!) I usually tune in to CNN. That is until that guy with Ethos comes on and tells me how his dad died and how thankfully his father had the right life insurance. And I could have that too …. I often change the station, but I have learned that he is on multiple channels especially if you are listening through Sirius XM. I think it’s the fake attempt to be sincere that bothers/irritates me. Don’t tell me about your dad’s sudden death unless you are willing to listen to my mother’s slow and agonizing. (That’s not fair I know it’s only a commercial.)

But what emerges for me is how precious are the real moments when connection is immediate and natural. I went to visit a good friend of mine yesterday who is in Hospice Care at home and honestly is in the process of dying. He wasn’t communicating by the time Eileen and I got there and it seemed as though he was determined to allow the process to reach culmination. I hope he knows we were there. But his partner did, his daughter did, his brother did. Sometimes when nothing else seems like it is working, showing up is not only all you can do but also the best thing you can do. Especially at this time in my life, when my contact list would be much shorter if I had the courage to delete my dead.

My friend couldn’t talk but he had the following Mary Oliver poem sitting on his desk. Last night death came to him and he has passed through the door to eternity.

“When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

when death comes

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the moutho

tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to t h e earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I w a s a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”