Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by . . . hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.
Thomas R. Kelly
Each day that I awake to the possibility of being more than just another human caught up in the blur of a life passing by is another day to feel alive. This new aliveness I can’t explain, yet I can’t ignore it. I am finding beauty in the mundane, mundane no longer making itself at home where it is not welcome. There is a newness to this concept as it is becoming real. Letting words flow, I search to externalize what I feel inside. Waking in the morning, when the dawn is still out of reach and thanks pass through my mind. A small uttering, this gratitude for awakening, will gain momentum as the day builds. But this momentum will only grow out of intention. The natural inclination is to forget, and it’s in forgetting that the blur sneaks back in and life becomes that once familiar fog of moments lost.
Vanderbilt ICU a place where the unexpected becomes someone’s reality. For the next year, I would spend the twilight hours here. Surrounded by the beeping, the sound of a machine lending itself to the next inhale, the pulsation coming from the monitor telling me the heart was still beating. I remember looking at my patient; I wonder what tragedies I’ll face? The uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Line by line, my story is being authored and I don’t want to forget.
To be continued.