Teach us to number our days...

...that we may get a heart of wisdom.

We don't know how many days we get here and lately I am beginning to feel those numbers. This week our friends lost their mother, their grandmother, and the heart of their family. She had already been through so many trials and things were looking up until, suddenly, she was gone. 

Her legacy lives on in the lives she imbued herself into: into time spent on adventures and fun, on showing up in a million different ways for her people, in her joy and candour and quirks and refusal to be anything but herself, her whole life. Her determination to be there for her people and her genuine interest in them was apparent in her actions every day. She loved them and she built into them and she had so much fun along the way.

Lately I've been contemplating my life. When I look at hers, I don't see the mistakes. I see someone who was always growing forward. Who shrugged their shoulders and laughed about the past and then focused on the right now. Someone who offered generosity and safety for others to be there too, always, no questions asked. I don't know how long I'm here for but for now I get this life and I am so so thankful to be able to show up. Today. For my people and in my life and choosing to do that well is a gift.

I hope someone says when I leave, "Wow, it is quiet here without her. Wow, I miss that joy. Wow, she really loved me. Wow that was a story."  And every time I choose to be present here and tell the truth and refuse to check out, I will think of Linda.

And maybe, just maybe, that's the best I can do to honour her.