I was visiting Kai, my oldest child last week in Vancouver. He’s attending art school there, studying film. He was showing me a recent short film he produced. The story involves a young man who only has a few more moments to live. The character is talking to another person in the scene about the beauty of the night sky – how incredible it looks in that moment.
Learning to appreciate the moment you’re in feels like an advanced life skill, so my heart felt deeply touched that he was exploring this practice at such a young age. I remember learning that lesson myself in my 20’s at a retreat I attended with my sister. The retreat was for people with life-threatening illness. During that weekend I felt awed by how deeply most people were able to embrace life so fully despite the challenges they were facing. At the end of that experience I had a profound determination to hold onto that perspective of life’s richness.
When we are facing a death moment in life, whether that be the end of a relationship, a job, the loss of a beloved, or even your own life, these are moments when we can learn to hone our attention to what really matters. Beauty, depth, feeling, can all come into sharper focus. In these moments we can feel an aliveness that can sometimes be lost in day-to-day of life.
Have I been able to hold onto that awareness? It’s a practice for sure. Like everyone, I forget, I get caught up in the little dramas of my life and fail to embody the spirit of life I saw in those few moments of my son’s film. But today I am grateful to be reminded – by my own son no less.
As we enter into this holiday season it can be easy to forget that spirit. Life can feel busier, stressful, as we try to create the perfect holiday. Many of us have experienced trauma around the holidays. However you spend these coming days I hope you can find moments of peace and appreciation for life.
Michael