And it came to pass…

Whatever it was, it came to pass.

Whether it was so beautiful it sent my soul soaring straight to Heaven, or so awful I prayed I just would not wake up again, it came to pass.

Three months straight of morning sickness, three times, so bad that only precious sleep brought any relief, and looking with awe into my daughters’ newborn faces for the first time, seeing the person who had been growing inside of me the better part of the last year. It came to pass.

Hearing Edward say, “I love you,” for the first time on our wedding day, and then his pledge to love me until death parted us, and watching the heart monitor flat-line as Dr. Brower swiftly raised his clenched, intertwined hands preparing to restart Edward’s stilled heart. It came to pass.

My father-in-law’s hands on my shoulders as he looked into my eyes and said, “Never forget you’re my daughter now, too,” and those awful last hours, rattling and gasping his way to eternity as we sat around his bed, grieving this hardest farewell. It came to pass.

The radiologist’s hand on my knee as she leaned toward me, “We are very concerned about the malignancy in your chest,” and the five-year-mark passing virtually unnoticed, except by me, a whispered prayer of gratitude for each day since, and a new awareness of the miracle of each moment of life.  It came to pass.

A red-faced, principal venomously spitting, “You could leave here today and not come back tomorrow and this place would roll right on and nobody would know the difference,” to a starry evening, fifteen years later, as one colleague after another brings a hug, good wishes, expressions of gratitude, stories of mutual defeats and victories, and we share a meal together, thankful for this time to linger, uninterrupted, before we part. It came to pass.

Are you familiar with the Doppler Effect? Wave frequencies, whether light, sound or water, increase as the wave source comes nearer to us, but as the wave source moves away after passing us, the frequencies shift downward and diminish away. Most of life seems to operate with Doppler Effect. We anticipate, look forward, dread, get excited, prepare, visualize, fear, alert. And then it’s over.  Whether it was full of joy or full of pain, it comes and it goes. Some moments leave pictures, words, souvenirs, gifts to reflect and remember by, and some leave scars and stains. But they all come to pass.

In this season when winter is perniciously ending and spring is haltingly beginning, let’s pause. Take a breath. Let’s just appreciate a moment, as though nothing were coming or going. As though the noise of the world were not getting louder, or fading away. Let’s just be. Suspended, outside of unrelenting time. Part of the breathtaking, alive universe.

Because this moment will pass too, as they all do.

Moments of joy. Moments of hope. Moments of peace. Moments of light.