Secret Seconds
“The circles say it’s time to complete the cycle.”
“Like those circles at the top of the Christmas tree. A small circle inside a larger one.”
~ Lisa Smart, “Words at the Threshold: What We Say as We’re Nearing Death”
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Dear Alex,
The church lady whose breaths have left us tonight encircled my prime younger decades. She was there on Sundays to meet God at the pews as far back as I could remember. There I met her in her home with her roommate on several visits shortly after college. Here she came on the morning of my wedding day to church, where our eyes last met a few months ago in the wingspan of a minute in greeting.
Every encounter, every hour that loops around us echoes the dangerous question you’ve been recycling: What does your life look like when flourishing and free to nurture the flourishing of another?
Those nearing death often speak of flourishing in shapes and symbols, reaching for something beyond reach. Lisa Smart records their last spoken thoughts in their final secret seconds with their loved ones and caregivers for the first time in the public realm of a book. The words of the dying, purified and poetic, seem to sprout from a common tongue about mending relationships and expressing gratitude.
Last month I requested our pastor to pass on my question to the church lady through her roommate: Can I call you? I’ve lost your phone number. A gracious response circled back: Thank you… maybe later.
My entire life has skirted ridiculously around timing opportunities, even goodbyes. And now the whirling of possibilities - “what if…“, “but I could have…” - whirs to another moment of wondering whether it might have been better for her to not hear my empty words.
There is no better time to flourish than now.
Yours,
Kate
PS. I took a photo of jellyfish at the Vancouver Aquarium last Boxing Day, drawn to a column of water circulating with spheres of mystery in visible transparency.
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