Sometimes it's hard to simply enjoy a quiet morning when serious matters gather to surround you.
This morning I went outside to sip my coffee, as I do on summer mornings. Usually I can sit and simply enjoy nature, centering myself for the day. Not this morning. Too many serious matters cluttering my inner peace.
I have a grandson just born this past April. He was in for an eight-hour open heart surgery at three days old. He did make it home, but only for a week or so before he developed a Staph infection in his shunt, ending up back in CICU. He was due to be released later this week, but he had a setback yesterday. The cold he got last month did not help... now it seems he will be hospitalized until September. He's such a cute little guy. My heart hurts for how he's been burdened, He knows nothing else, and through it all he still smiles. Hospital staff thinks he might be outgrowing his shunt, but the cold he had has to be gone for 4-6 weeks before they can operate again. I have not yet met him: I was scheduled to visit the first week in June, but by then he was back in the hospital. Today I am finding it difficult to the mitigate the heaviness in my heart.
I have a cousin - a gorgeous adolescent girl - who was pushed over the mental edge with the Covid isolation. She is just getting out of a residential program, and there are so many like her that there is no room for her in outpatient care. I have another adolescent female cousin in Canada that tried to commit suicide. Today I'm finding it difficult to the mitigate the heaviness in my heart.
It rained last night, and it was wet and dreary this morning as I sipped my coffee. However, the sun is starting to peek out of the clouds. Mayhaps I will go out again and rejoice that I successfully got my ailing elder pup to eat bacon, eggs and cheese for breakfast, hand-fed. Small victories. Sometimes, that's the thread that keeps us going.
It's now the following day... this is where I set my jaw. We have been given a chess board with incredible beauty, audible and visual. Against that is the brutal fact that virtually every animate creature needs to kill something else to survive. Not how I would have designed it, but that's what we have. The question, then, is how do you choose to play the game? Only one thing is truly under anyone's control, and that is themselves... mood included. I now choose away from sad. I choose the beauty I can find.