evening and morning

Immediately after my father died, I became newly, oddly aware of days that were unusually nice, especially as I would ride along West Beach Drive where he lived a large part of his life, my mind dwelling on the thought, "he didn't get to enjoy this beautiful day." The thought also came after Hurricane Michael "he doesn't know that a Category Five hurricane has swept through Panama City."

Though my father will have been dead thirty years this summer, the thought still comes to me frequently, along with the realization that - - as our priest says in his blessing, "... life is short, and we haven't much Time" - - I need to notice and enjoy the days. Not just that it's a beautiful day, but especially "hey, I'm alive! thank you, God!"

Strangely perhaps, the thought often includes wondering how the days were for Marcus Aurelius, and having no doubt that he noticed beautiful days of life as he thought and wrote, with no idea that what he contemplated and jotted down would be helpful to me working my way through life two thousand years hence.

Yesterday, Tuesday, a seemingly unremarkable, bright, shiny silver and gray day, the thought came to me again, that Anthony didn't get to enjoy this day. Which, like my father, he will never again do, enjoy, notice, love, be. It's what comes to all of us, not just "them," but each one of us.

Yesterday in fact, neither the day nor my thought was remarkable, except for stirring my memory of Bill Lloyd observing as he knew his life was ending, "Every Day Is A Beautiful Day." Every day is a beautiful day to live, love, and enjoy, because Time is all we have, and Time of life is gifted to us in days, beginning "and evening and morning were the first day."

Days are to live, for us who are, as a burial prayer has it, "as yet still in our pilgrimage." It occurs to me that we are blessed that, as eternal sleep comes for each one us, we will not be aware that we are missing beautiful days. So my father doesn't know, and Anthony no longer knows; which leaves it to me to keep on noticing and knowing.

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Late breakfast: hot, black coffee and an open-face sandwich of leftover salmon with homemade sauce of ranch dressing, mayo, cream, and capers, on toasted thin whole wheat seed bread.

RSF&PTL