No Time Like the Present

This post dedicated to Leo

There is nothing quite like experiencing loss. It comes in many forms... loss of a job, loss of an opportunity, loss of a loved one. It may seem a depressing topic, but most of us can share of specific times we have lost something or someone in our lives and when we do, we realize that the loss is as much a part of life as the moments we have gained something or someone. I begin my blog with this topic, because it is through a recent loss that I am inspired to birth a blog that I always thought I'd do "someday." It's that "someday"... that vague, ominous, looming, in-the-distance, down-the-road "someday" that cheats us from "today."

It was about two weeks ago, on a Saturday night, I went to let our family dog into the house from the backyard. When I came to the door, something already seemed wrong. Leo, our Golden Retriever, always stood at the sliding backdoor waiting for a compassionate person to let him back inside. He wasn't there. I called his name into the darkness of the yard. He didn't come. We looked around, called his name again, and eventually discovered a side gate unlatched. He had gone exploring in the neighborhood. To bring you to the startling end of a story, we found our beloved dog up on the side of a road nearby-- he had been hit by a car and was gone. It is still as shocking to write this here as it was to find him that night. It was that instant, that moment, that blink of an eye that he was with us and then gone. I couldn't say that I'd pat his head "tomorrow", tell him he was good dog "next week", or take him for a walk "when I got the time." Those opportunities were gone, those moments were gone, he was gone.

As I passed through the next week, I began to assimilate what had happened. Our brains and our hearts don't process loss so easily. We have to live it for awhile to grasp it's finality and it's meaning. I considered my life, my hopes, my goals and my time. I remembered a quote I had recently seen: "The way we spend our days is the way we spend our life." Without living in a panic of what we should or could be doing, we can still live in the reality of our gift of today. It's what we choose to do now, while we have this day we call "today."

Thus the reason I decided to start this blog right here and now. I figured I'd do it sometime... when I thought of a good title, when I had enough time, when I was brave enough to share stories with others, and when I just plain old got around to it. Well, I've decided not to wait until I get around to it... I'm going to "get around to it today!"