As our break week comes to a close, I stood in the sunshine this afternoon and reflected on the week. What did we do? We went to a concert, had medical appointments, worked some, made home renovation plans, and saw two great games with our kids.
The home renovation process/discussion is a difficult one. So many things were planned for years for our home and land, and with my husband’s diagnosis, we may not be able to (or want to) achieve some of them after all. For example? This was the year in our long-term plan that we were going to add more beehives and expand the gardens even more. Now we don’t plan on having bees this year, and we are scaling back the garden. No, we aren’t giving up, but we are being realistic and also wanting to focus on the quality of life and joy, not stressing over how many bushels of tomatoes we have sitting on the counter needing to be canned.
The appointments? They went well but still cause lots and lots of stress, uncertainty, and fear. The good news? We have such wonderful people around us, we can express all of those things and go forward.
But around all of that, we had a concert and two games (hockey and basketball). The concert was perfection. Great music, new friends and old, love, and the reminder that even if Sam is gone in body, his soul and love continue to motivate us on a daily basis. The games? They gave us different joy, but all based around family and friends. At the hockey game, we had the joy of watching our youngest granddaughter overcome her fear of the mascot and her pride in being so brave. We watched our oldest granddaughter get to know her uncle’s friends and talk and talk, something we didn’t know if she’d ever be able to do. We watched our grandson yell “Zamboni” at the top of his lungs, full of joy to see the machines. Then we went to a basketball game, watched great D-1 basketball and had the joy of watching our sons with their significant others, and realized that we have great kids. No longer children, they have all found their way into adulthood, have great partners, and have more strength and poise that I could have imagined at their ages. Our living children have navigated the worlds of losing their brother and now their father’s changing health without awkwardness, and they make me so very proud.
And then today, as I was sad about the end of the break, I watched Hila the sheep leave the grain trough to run over and rub noses with my husband, her favorite person in the world.
Yes, last Friday was Valentine’s Day, but for me, love can be found in a helping hand at a concert, a hug that makes you feel loved, a mushy bagel shoved in your mouth because a child wants to share, a UVM mascot waving to a child as she works up the bravery to wave back, a son starting the car so his dad won’t be cold, and a sheep saying hello.
Love is all around us if we just take the time to recognize it.