Tag: love

Living Life

The webs of life can seem like and invisible trap we don’t want to feel caught in – but rain, and taking the time to pause, look and take stock can help us find the beauty.

I wrote last summer about the challenge I was experiencing, along with my brother, of supporting our elderly mother who was finding life very hard and was coping less and less well. Last autumn we had it confirmed that she had dementia and, as it had a vascular element as well as Altzeimers, her decline was no longer gentle but sometimes in quite dramatic steps.

We moved her into a lovely care home in December last year – she was safe and being looked after but it wasn’t easy as she didn’t have the capacity to adapt. For me, having already realised my brother, who was closer at hand, needed to take the lead role as her carer, it was also time to adapt and I struggled.

In a way it was good that for some time I was not able to have the daily contact with her I was used to, because it made me realise I needed to let go of the emotional responsibility for taking care of her, which I had been doing for years. I found I disliked some of my feelings and motivations – my weak points were showing and I didn’t like it, but I knew they were just as much a part of me as the bits I like, and I needed to accept them to move on.

Thankfully her decline was not long and drawn out, and she died peacefully in July. We were glad – she had had a long, good and full life; as a Christian she had no fear of death, and hanging on in that situation was not something she wanted – or we wanted for her.

There have been of course, plenty of things to get on with since she died and I have thrown myself in fully. It wasn’t until I had a holiday in September and was forced (by torrential rain) to stop ‘doing’ and just relax, that I became aware of just how tired I was, and the extent to which I had not been taking my own advice. I needed to allow myself the time and space to change and embrace who I am, and who I chose to be.  It was just what I needed.

I found this poem, or pondering, which I started earlier May 2024, and it still strikes a chord. It speaks of an approach to life I clearly realised I needed at the time I started writing it… and I still need and am still learning now.

Don’t shy from the present,  
Nor cling to it, to stop change;
Don’t fear the truths it reveals,
Just be in it, stay in it,
Experience the moment.

Don’t live life in the past;
Remember it’s joys and smiles,
Live its positive lessons,
Then let it be, let it go.
The past is not where life is.

Don’t live in the future,
In your choices think of it,
Conjure its opportunities
In your mind, then let it be.
The future is not yet formed.

Live in this moment now,
Savour its joys and pleasures,
Weather its challenges and pain.
Right now is all you need bear,
This too will pass, and be past.

Know that all life is change,
Embrace it, don’t shy from it.
Live only in this moment.
Being present here, and now,
Move with life as it moves on.

Experience it … and enjoy!

© Share D’All
October 2025

This too shall pass

There are times where the rain seems all you can see …

‘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