As salamu aleikum!
One of the greatest gifts we have is peace of mind, but at some point in our lives we just throw it outside the window. There is no time for living!! It’s about surviving the morning, the afternoon, the deadline. Anyway, how annoying happy people are and, yet, the strong craving for worry-free life, finally, eats us away…
I’m back home after visiting my relatives, my parents and my cancer-fighting grandparents.
And I would like to apologize for lack of posting, for not sending emails. The life sucked me in and I did not try to resist that.
The trip was amazing in many ways. Alhamdulillah. I got to see my grandparents and because I brought back with me so many valuable life lessons, that would require a separate book to just be able to list them. Let me share the most important one, if I may.
Ready to find YOUR peace of mind?
Nearly a week in our stay my both grandparents were brought together in the same hospital, but different departments and after a long time of not being able to see each other, due to different treatments in different cities, they have had a possibility to meet. My grandpa stood up to put the sweater to go to visit the love of his life, but couldn’t. He collapsed on the very same hospital bed he so bravely got up off. If that was not enough, his blood results came back so bad that he got hospitalized latter the same day in his home town, since regional hospital refused to do chemotherapy. He was in horrible state. We genuinely thought we will have to bury him on Friday. There was NO CHANCE that he will pull it off. His liver and kidney started to shut down.
But he did! To everyone’s surprise and joy he came back! Just the atmosphere in the town where he lived nearly all his life helped him to recovered, leaving us all baffled.
It made us all think, that we cannot live anymore in fear of losing, but rather we should live and celebrate his aliveness. We should savour every moment we still have with him. Also, we were mentally exhausted from the emotion rollercoaster. It was driving us all nuts.
A week forwards, my grandmother was discharged from the hospital and let to recover after the surgery at home. My grandpa flourished. He was showing his ‘healthiness’ in front of his wife as if her recovery depended on it. It was amazing to see them sooooo united. So raw. So frank and honest.
And the biggest takeaway that I brought with me deeply in my heart was a conversation that I overheard. My father was talking about the conversations he have had with my grandpa, while helping around the house. My grandpa told him, that he only now, when his health is in the worst state that it ever was, realizes that he pushed through all those years, but have not actually lived the life. He did not what?!
My beautiful, amazing grandpa with the witty character of his! If I would tell you that it pierced my heart, it would be an understatement.
He doesn’t have the time to live The Life now. He can only do the best living according to his abilities, because everything else is unknown. He haven’t used ALL those years he had had. The light bulb moment happened just now, in his seventy’s’, and it’s too late.
It’s too late to regret.
How often do we regret the time we wasted on unnecessary things? Why have we wasted our energy worrying about things that will probably, if at all, will never happen in the future? Why have we wasted our lives hoping that once we will grow up/get a job/marry/have kids/earn good money we will be able to live the ‘normal’ lives The Lives? Why have we robbed ourselves and our beloved ones of peace of mind? Do we really need to live our lives without appreciation and savouring the moments, so that illness/loss or any other disaster would give us a cruel wakeup call?
Why do we need to hurt ourselves so badly, that mind boggling pain would be the only one that will make us realize the beauty of living in the moment?
I will leave you with that this time.
Ma salama xxx
