‘This too shall pass’ is a phrase that has can be traced back to Sufi poets and has appeared in many cultures in one shape or another throughout history. Perhaps the most famous, and attributable, use of it was by Abraham Lincoln, who, as well as being famous for being the first president of the United States after the Civil War, was apparently also someone who had experienced crippling depression earlier in his life. It rang a chord.
My mother is in her 90s and is currently experiencing debilitating confusion and decline in mental capacity – we do not yet have her condition diagnosed because of complications with the process, and my brother and I are trying to get a support package for her put into place, but it takes time. She is miserable and feels life has gone on too long and she has lost herself.
I find myself thinking about what to do and how to help most of the day, when not distracted by other more immediate requirements, and am finding it difficult to turn this off and go to sleep at night. I live a minimum two-hour drive away, but my brother is close at hand and is therefore bearing the brunt practically. I am concerned about him even though he seems to be managing very well.
I feel guilty when I am not there, and exhausted when I go to stay with her for a few days, and when I am home, I am spending a lot of time on the phone with her or my brother – or trying to participate in various meetings about her condition over my brother’s phone… a system he kindly puts in place whenever he can.
Yet at this precise moment here I am worrying, searching for solutions, explanations and support pathways on my computer, when in fact I am sitting at my desk on a sunny Sunday afternoon and realistically nothing is required of me at this moment in time.
I need to let go and live in the moment … I know this in my head, but I am not yet living it. I need to live it.
In a moment of sanity earlier today Lincoln’s saying ‘this too shall pass’ came to mind. It struck me that although I have no idea when this will have passed, or indeed how it will pass, I can be sure it will pass one way or the other.
I allowed myself a brief glimpse into how it will feel when this worry is over, and it was good.
No doubt during the path there I will experience other feelings, but they too will pass if I let them. Pondering on it here, as I write, I realise that despite not knowing when or how that future will come to pass, I can use my imagination to experience some of the peace of it here, now.
Maybe ‘not knowing’ is part of what makes it possible to do this … I don’t know … but I do know that now, in this moment, it makes me smile inside and smiling is good.
With a smile inside I know it is possible for me to handle the next few moments, hours, days, weeks, months, years even, with more peace, more kindness and more love.
Thanks Abraham.
Share D’All
July 2024
Tales of the Universe 