A Lens

The visitor, unwelcomed and uninvited, came to visit again. Finding a place of comfort between the sheets was an effort strong enough to bring this reluctant host of PD to full awareness that sleep was not to revisit any time soon. Pain was insisting that attention be given as this host became obsessed with thoughts of relieving self of the visitor. The sturdy recliner offered welcomed relief, embracing the aging and now tired recipient of reduced dopamine. In those wee hours of the morning a browse through social media brought our attention to remembrances of two young men in their thirties, taken away, each by auto accidents. The tears began to well up in these previously dry eyes until they expressed their fluid full force after reading a tribute to a humble member of a local ministry who passed away from cancer and left so many of his cohorts in a state of grief. Now fully flowing with tears, it was time to just let it flow. As the emotional purge proceeded, recollections of the wonder of things experienced because of these precious lives came to mind and were uttered in expressions of gratitude to God for having been in my life. Their lives and the loss of the communities in which they thrived were not about me, but as I continued to give thanks it was easier to see that so many others were touched in more and different ways by these lives now being remembered. Gratitude became the lens through which the miracle of love became alive even in the face of what is termed as death. The light of today glows brighter and clearer because of its reflection through gratitude.