Staying Present
March 18, 2013 at 9:56 pm | Posted in Grief, Jake, Love, normal?, Sawyer, twins | 12 CommentsTags: cancer, child loss, life after loss, new not so normal, perspective, quotes, staying present, Valerie Harper
Recently, I was reminded once again to live in the present. I watched an interview with Valerie Harper. She spoke so honestly about how she is trying to live in the moment and live her life to the fullest despite her terminal brain cancer diagnosis. In her interview, Harper reminded us all that “None of us gets out alive. Don’t go to the funeral before the day of the funeral.”
I replayed her interview in my head when I saw a daunting hill on mile 12 of the half marathon I was running. My first thought was to jump to the future (at least for a couple of hours to when I was showered and not running). I tried to focus on the moment. It was a beautiful day. Only 1.1 miles to go. The run was rough but I made it.
I again thought of Valerie Harper as I was helping the twins with their homework. One of the twins had the assignment to draw a family picture in order from tallest to shortest.
Who is the tallest? No problem. “Daddy is the tallest!”
Who is the shortest? Tougher question. “Mama, who was taller, Jake or Sawyer?”
The “not living in the moment me” would have taken into consideration that Jake should be 7. He should be taller than the twins and Sawyer (who should be 3).
I pulled myself back to the present reality. I answered, “Jake was the shortest.”
My therapist is always reminding me not to grow Jake and Sawyer up. The loss of Jake and Sawyer as babies is horrible enough without also grieving the loss at every age. I am still working on this. . .
12 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
A Mourning Mom 
Excellent reminder to live in the present as much as possible. Not an easy thing to do.
Comment by Kelcey— March 18, 2013 #
Living in the moment CAN be very difficult. I need to heed your therapist’s advice, too. Thanks for sharing that.
Comment by Beth— March 19, 2013 #
Wonderful post Lanie! Live for today.
Comment by Susan FB— March 19, 2013 #
Living in the present is something that I too have to work on each and every day. Thanks for the reminder Lanie – I hope I can catch Valerie Harper’s interview on a rebroadcast. It sounds like it was worthwhile. Have a good day!
Comment by Cate— March 19, 2013 #
It’s a good reminder – a great post, and of course a beautiful picture. Congrats on the race!
Comment by Daphne— March 19, 2013 #
Congratulations on your race! It is a wonderful reminder for us all. I appreciate your beautiful illustrations of how to be practical with it.
Comment by Kristen— March 19, 2013 #
Love both the picture, and the very important reminder! Thanks for sharing….
Comment by Eden— March 19, 2013 #
living right now… hardest part of this. I live in the ‘maddie would love today’, ‘maddie would be a first grader’… I like that your therapist said that. I will work on that too…
Comment by climbingupthepolkadottree— March 19, 2013 #
Yes, not to grow them up, that’s kind of hard given that I have a living example of her identical twin sister with me every day…
Comment by Nathalie Himmelrich— March 20, 2013 #
My dear friend. I read somewhere that when you realize that you are not always thinking in the present is the best indicator that you are able to in fact be in the present. So just the fact that you see that, remind yourself of that…is amazing. Congrats on the race! You are an inspiration to me. Miss you lots.
Comment by Amy Johnson— March 22, 2013 #
[…] realm of the past and re-embrace the present”. At times, I have to work hard to stay in the present so the physical act of washing hands is a good reminder for […]
Pingback by Washing | A Mourning Mom— January 14, 2014 #
[…] know that I am not supposed to grow him up in my mind but sometimes I find myself wondering […]
Pingback by Fine Tuning | A Mourning Mom— April 28, 2015 #