Living in the Ordinary

Life. Living. All of it can be found in the ordinary. This isn’t a new thought. It isn’t  a revelation. It isn’t one you haven’t heard before. It goes along with things like not taking life for granted and enjoying the little things in life. And I think most of us try to honor these statements by practicing gratitude and living in the moment. But it’s hard.

Life can sweep us up in its river and suddenly we find ourselves bobbing in the waters and bumping against the rocks as the currents sweep us forward, day after day. Next thing you know, we’re miles down the river of life, wondering where all the days went and realizing we missed many small, but grand moments along the way.

Sometimes, that next thing is something that jolts you suddenly and unexpectedly, and it wakens you to this realization of coasting through life.

Today, that something is the passing of a loved cousin. I received the news and have had trouble wrapping my head around it. It wasn’t expected. Not yet. Cancer and its complications took her earthly body yesterday. A beautiful day with blue skies and big puffy clouds. A breezy summer day. Leaves rustling. Birds chirping. A beautiful sunset.

I spent the first few hours after hearing of her passing in disbelief. Perhaps even denial. It just couldn’t be. Not yet.

Then I did an ordinary thing. I let the dogs out. I opened the door to the porch and walked out. I sat down on the steps and waited. Feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, I looked up to the heavens, at those big beautiful clouds against the vast blue sky and I felt her. Smiling. And I’m certain of that, because that’s who she was.

I heard the birds chirping, louder than I’ve ever realized before. Heard the rustling of the wind through the trees. Watched the finest ripples of waves on the pond, felt the sharpness of the wood beneath my feet, the sound of children’s giggles playing at the nearby park, dogs barking in the distance, a train passing a few miles away. I bowed my head into my hands as tears formed at the corners of my eyes.

She was gone. Yet her light was not. This beautiful woman, with a faithful heart and generous spirit. This incomparable heart and soul whose brightness entered a room before she did. Kim. I hear her voice and see the sparkle in her eyes and the joy that passes her lips as it spreads into a smile. The woman who would ask you questions when she saw you and would truly and intently listen, with heart.

With my head still bowed in my hands, I opened my eyes, tears dropping as I stared at the grain in the wooden stairs beneath my feet. Ordinary, weathered and grey wood. Steps that lead to green grass and a stone pathway I walk every day. Ordinary things.

She would no longer know the ordinary. Because she was now in the heavenly extraordinary.

Her immediate family…their ordinary is forever changed with her joyful self no longer present, with her arms not here to wrap around them in a loving embrace. The ordinary. Changed forever. Her legacy is strong, her love ever present. They have that to hold on to. But it’s not the same is it?

I never realized just how much she impacted me through single and simple interactions. I never realized just how much she taught me by how she showed up in life, until she was no longer living. The blessings are mine for having had her in my life.

Today, my wonder and appreciation of the ordinary continues. My search for joy in all those ordinary places…it continues. Because of Kim. And the very thing that fills me with peace is knowing that her unwavering faith prepared her to meet her Father in Heaven, who was likely hand in hand with her son that went before her, ready to wrap their loving arms around her.