My heart stood stock-still and listened and broke the past few months under frigid cold layers of shock and grief, this heart, wrapped in others' devastation, fear and loneliness. Held white-knuckled close in the clutches of sorrow, it heard this muffled, plaintive whisper: Listen. Learn. Grow.
It's natural, I think, the internal insistence that these Worst Things that happen must be for Something, and for Something Good. The guttural, spirit-uttered Why?, moaned in the wake of shattering tragedy, demands The Perfect Answer.
It just does. If you've survived a tragedy, you know it does.
And so I'm led - more than led; I'm urgently summoned - to press just one meaningful sprout of hope and beauty through the bleakness of what's stormed and beaten down my world and the people, my beloved people, in it.
I shake my head slowly as I sit here, thinking, typing, how can I reach out and put this one thing into everyone I know? How do I press this into your chest and fold your arms gently over it and stare into your eyes, your busy eyes, that smile and listen and dart and sparkle and then maybe know or maybe forget, or maybe close altogether:
Do not let tragedy be the force that brings you to examine your relationships and discover you've left your kindest words unsaid, your caring deeds undone, or another's dreams unknown.
Life moves and it complicates. Your forgiveness loses status to resentful pride. Your embrace gets in line behind an urgent task. Your real, cherished-forever loving word drowns under a river of daily life-speak. Your interest wanes amid the check-list-labors.
Whom haven't you forgiven for a past argument? What if Thursday morning you find yourself bowing your head at the funeral of a someone with whom you'll never be able make things right again?
Whom didn't you hold close today? What if tonight he doesn't come home?
Whose eyes haven't you looked into and said, You're a beautiful person and of so much value to me. I cherish your amazing You-ness? What if you never get to say anything at all to her ever again?
Whom didn't you sit beside one day in the sunshine and ask, What do you dream about, when you let yourself dream? What if by this time next week all you can do, forever, is WONDER about about his answer?
Examine your attitude. Dump your pride. Shuffle your priorities. Speak your heart's words into the hearts of others whenever you get the chance.
Make February 28th the day you undid a tragedy before it ever happened.
Let today be the day you make a miracle of your life and watch it bloom in the lives of the people around you.