Time changes how we look at things, and sometimes we can not even see who we will become and where we will end up even though it might be right there in front of us.
Shortly after leaving the ferry I drove up to visit my mother's grave. It had been a long holiday and my visit was overdue. As I strode from the road down to her stone, I gazed into the distance. I was amazed at the beauty of the place, the ocean, and the trees swaying in the cold December air. I had made these steps many times by now, frequently coming to visit whenever I was back in New York. This time I made the same long timid strides, the ones that brought me to her resting place, the ones that reminded me that this was indeed real. Its odd as I think about those steps, its like in my head I somehow feel I might arrive at her grave and find nothing there, and frantically run to the car to go see her realizing it had all been a bad dream. Never was this the case though, instead as I took my last few steps the stone came into view, and it sunk in that this was very very real. There would be no epiphany, no waking up, this was it and I needed to breathe and deal with that fact. Slowly as always I crouched down to the dirt, silently telling her hello, wondering if maybe she was watching me at this moment, perched high above her grave maybe she could see me weep, my head bowed and think how I had changed since my last visit. After some time of silence I got up as I always do, peering out with my back to her grave to look out into the distance. Despite the fact that I had been here many times, I never saw what I saw at that moment. Gazing out directly from her grave was a clear view of St.Charles hospital, the very hospital I was born in some 28 years ago.
As I gazed out on to the hospital, and looked at the tiny windows I thought how odd this whole scene was. Here I was standing at my mother's grave, looking right at the very hospital in which she gave me life. Here in this moment stood poised the natural cycle of life, birth and death. This epiphany forced me to wonder what my mom was like nearly 28 years ago. I pictured her young and beautiful, about to give birth for the first time. I saw a 22 year old girl sitting in that hospital bed, just a few miles, and an eyes gaze away from her final resting spot. Of course she did not know this, we never the where and when, but to think that on that day as she gave birth, or as she held me in her arms, buoyant with the possibilities of the future I wonder if for one moment her eyes fell upon this spot that is now her grave as she looked out the window. In that moment of pure life, where the future seems so huge and impregnated with possibility and teeming with life, did her heart stop for a brief second as her eyes saw that spot, did something deep inside her know? And now? Does her soul pass over this spot, does she look down upon me here weeping at her grave and turn her eyes just slightly upward and see back into where she gave me life? Does she gaze back longingly at that hospital, at those moments of bliss and pure possibility and weep? Or does she look back at that hospital, gazing from her grave and smile at the amazing cycle that life is? I would like to believe she looks back with a smile. I know I do when I think that each moment we encounter is both tinged with the great hope of possibility life while also harboring the fact that at some point we will all meet our end. This is both the beauty and the tragedy that is life. So when I reflect upon this great cycle before me, it forces me to remember to savor those moments, every moment as hard as that it is. As my eyes gaze out into the possibilities before me, as I smile at the moments that bring me elation, I remember to be thankful for this very moment, for who knows when it may end.
