Translating a World on the Edge

Photo by ManicMorFF, Morguefile.com

How many things in life do we take for granted?

Some take for granted food, water, and shelter. It’s easy to do–unless food, water, and shelter are in short supply, as they are for many in our world.

Or when we have plans for tomorrow, we don’t like to think they could be changed by an event out of our control.

And how about our health, our friends, our spouse? We surely don’t like to think of illness, death, or betrayal taking away those close to us.

Those kind of losses happen to someone everyday. We hope they won’t happen to us, but of course, that is foolish. We cannot be certain  the economy will not affect our jobs, and then our way of life. We cannot be certain we will remain healthy. And ultimately, each of us will lose someone we care about through death or betrayal.

When a person is lost or taken from us, we’re likely to experience regrets–what did we not do that we could have done?

When my parents were older, they were curious as to what sort of childhood I’d had. Had they been good parents is what they were really asking. I told them I’d had a wonderful childhood because they had been wonderful parents. I’ll never forget the smile on my mother’s face when she said, “Well, Kaye, you knew you were loved.”

Regrets usually come when we haven’t loved enough, when we take each other for granted as much as we do taking a breath. Most of the time we don’t notice that we’re breathing at all–it’s just something that comes naturally, except we’d better not hold back our breath for too long.

Love is something that comes natural, too; part of our spirituality. But too often, we hold it back. We may even intentionally withhold love from another as a payback of sorts–a pretty risky thing to do on any given day. Because that one day may be the last we have to give our love, or to receive love from another.