FULLY LIVE

Two days ago I was basking in the warmth of Arizona, today I’m greeted by the incessant Oregon rain.

Life is like that sometimes, the sunshine and the storm.

At the moment one of my employees sits bedside in the hospital waiting for his little one to improve, another is around the world on a European vacation.

I am celebrating for one, hurting for the other.

This morning I sat over coffee with a dear friend. He is navigating a cancer diagnosis, the aggressive kind. He will soon know if he can mount a fight or must turn his attention to wrapping up affairs so his wife can move forward in a life without him.

Moments later I returned home to the news that another friend delivered her first baby, a 7 pound 9 ounce, pouty-lipped bundle of joy. She is beautiful like her momma and welcomed into loving and excited arms.

I am crying for one, wishing the best for the other.

I don’t know what to make of it, the tension between the highs and lows of life, the stretching chasm between celebration and mourning that we are asked to straddle. 

There is both death and life on the horizon. 

There is both grief and gladness.

There is both joy and pain.

How does one walk through it all? 

Life has taught me that shrinking back from pain only hinders my ability to push into the fullness of pleasure, that avoiding the lows only robs the experience of the highs.

But I really just want the sunshine. 

I do not wish for the storm.

As we wrapped up our coffee this morning my cancer-diagnosed friend assured me that no one goes on forever, that the end eventually comes for us all. But until then, he smiled widely, we fully live. 

It was then that my tears fell. 

So until that day, let us fully live. Live the highs, live the lows, live the celebration, live the mourning. Live both the pleasure and the pain, both the sadness and the joy.

Embracing both the sunshine and the storm, may we fully live.