The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. (Thich Nhat Hanh)
I am enjoying time with friends and listening to what they have to say, to who they are. But I am distracted by a tickling in the back of my throat and ask Marie to reread an inspirational passage she has just read. I’d been coughing and all I heard was the cadence of her voice.
As I open a cough drop and lay the wrapper in my lap I notice something I’ve never seen before. Sure I’ve soothed my throat with Hall’s Drops for years, but I never paid a second’s notice to the paper. All I cared about was easing the irritation. Messages appear on the wrapper: Push on. Don’t give up on yourself. You can do it. I laugh and then read them aloud.
All four of us have never noticed the words tucked around that promise of relief. Pat gets up to ask her husband if he has ever seen the tiny printed words. He has. I gather the rest of us have been too busy, focused only on a task—or worse on the end product, not the blessings inherent in the moment. Since the purpose of our gathering is spiritual, I get the clue: life is in the now, every minute aspect of it.
Two days later, after I’ve taken a picture of the wrappers that didn’t get blown away by an unexpected wind that reached into my pocket, something else unexpected happens. I haven’t had breakfast but feel as if my stomach is full, or as if something very heavy is weighing it down. Nevertheless, I manage to sample two free cookies and my usual coffee with another group of friends. Within an hour I’m desperately sorry. Everything comes up much faster than it went down.
Since my husband continues to recover from fractured ribs this is not a good time to be relegated to the couch—inches from a plastic bucket. However, like the unexpected blessings printed into the wrapper, surprises appear.
“What can I get for you?” my husband asks. True, my gut hasn’t yet recovered from my last upchuck, but it doesn’t matter. Jay doesn’t want me to get dehydrated. “I need to try to do a little more anyway.” The graciousness in his voice is transparent. This is good. It’s what real-life love is all about.
terrypetersen 