i.
Despite the best efforts of countless intellectuals, time remains a fugitive. It’s hard to capture.
ii.
Yet time is an old friend who never fails to show up. You can say we are intimately acquainted with the passage of time that we don’t notice seconds, minutes, hours, and days ticking away.
iii.
Perhaps you look at time to measure life or to count people and things you lose and gain along the way. Then you realise life is a spectrum of pure joy and deep sadness.
iv.
Some say life is short. Others believe life is long. You question the unfairness of it.
v.
But who wants to repeat themselves like a broken record? People die young every day. Some, on the verge of a breakthrough after years wading the tide, leave without enjoying the fruits of their labour.
vi.
Still you wonder if this pattern is some design of a master plan. Time being the master or you being the master of your time. Whilst lost in contemplation, time outruns you.
vii.
One week, you’re thinking of composing a wedding poem for your niece. The following week brings impossible news; the couple and your nephew are all gone. A report says they ran into a truck or a truck ran into them…
viii.
In a flash, time lapses, and life is done —
ix.
Shut the front door! You’re taken aback by your initial reaction.
x.
‘Cause where are we going to shelve a wedding date absent of formality and ceremony? Who will inform all the confirmed guests? What about the bridal registry brimming with gifts? The list is endless… You all sit motionless, utterly stupefied.
xi.
Overthinking these trivial questions is procrastination. It’s a way to avoid talking. Parents lost not one child but two. Oh no, it’s actually three! What could you possibly say to them, for what kind of God plays a sick joke like this?
xii.
In a way that feels surreal, an invisible hand pulls back the curtain and you glimpse a wedding recessional. An army of long-departed loved ones, are cheering and tossing dried flowers, as they welcome the couple and the best man home. You wipe the tears away.
xiii.
A message on the wall seems to be directly addressing you as you step off the ferry in Tallinn, “Time is precious. Make the most of it.”
xiv.
You realise then that you don’t know how the heck to look at time and its preciousness, for that matter. Instead of promising to be the eyes of all your loved ones who didn’t live to see this day, you decide to live boldly.
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PPS. A new post “A Way of Looking at Kindness” is coming up next Sunday. If you’re new to this series, A Way of Looking at Autumn’s First Breath, is a good place to start.
Feature photo by Brooke Campbell on Unsplash.
