She steps up to
the mic and affirms we're here to celebrate life. I catch myself welling up as the word life
catches in her throat. She's up on the
stage clutching those nearest and dearest to her, looking out at her community;
the group of family and friends who are becoming known to each other for no
other reason than for knowing her.
They've brought food and flowers, music and memories to this majestic
clearing in the trees. They sing like the musicians in the band with their
words of love and joy. They warm like the fire blazing heat through the crisp
mountain air. They sparkle like the lights strung across the evergreens soaring
high into the sky.
She wonders what
she's done to deserve it all; this path of switchbacks life keeps asking her to
navigate. And at the same time she grips
the wheel firmly with both hands, marveling at all she's learning with every
turn she braves.
These challenges
life forces us to stare down, they aren't the occasional rough patch on an
otherwise smooth and predictable course.
They are everyday opportunities to develop our true selves we have no
choice but to accept. And unfortunately they are sometimes doled out to us in
the dirtiest of jobs.
When we accept
that we are all broken in one way or another, some of us more visibly and
publicly than others, and that hairpin turns aren't here to get into the way of
life, but rather are the way of life, all sorts of magic happens. We no longer need to worry about what if. We don't need to wallow in the self pity of
why me. When we expect that the road
will be harrowing at times we can focus on learning how to drive it. An incredibly huge and wonderful ask not only
because it takes courage, but help unlocking
it.
She says her
feistiness only gets her so far. For the
rest she credits her community. She
learns to ask for what she needs, relieving countless pairs of idle hands
earnest to be put to work. She places a
huge chunk of her hard fought business into the care of others, knowing she may
never get it back. She comes to the slow realization that life is not
temporarily altered for this blip on the radar screen, but forever altered as a
new way of being.
The awkward,
unwanted glow of cancer places her in this spotlight. And she is able to use this place to
acknowledge we all need each other, no matter the magnitude, credibility or
celebrity of our brokenness, to fuel us through whatever life hands us. She celebrates the power this community of
giving helps her find in herself as she braces for another hairpin turn. This
is glorious and treacherous life in the mountains. This is life.
