A lot is being said these days about mindfulness and living in the moment. According to what came from a Google search for mindfulness, it is “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”

I guess it’s not that intuitive, and yet it can be practiced and therefore learned. I’ve always been one who likes to just “let the day happen” to me. I’m a lover of spontaneity. Plans sometimes need to be made, of course, but as a retiree I have the luxury of letting things happen.

I’ve practiced patience, problem solving, forgiveness, and critical thinking a lot in my life, but this mindfulness business is different. I like to think of it as just allowing myself to be. I say, “Go ahead, Universe. Sock it to me. Not too hard though; please be gentle.” I may not be fragile, but I don’t like to hurt.

Lately I’ve been attempting to accept the death of my mother each day, each moment as it comes to me and I realize she is gone from this life.

Each morning I rise to greet a new day. A day with the knowledge that my mother is no longer taking breaths. My heart aches, but it is also happy. Happy knowing that Mom got her wish and her prayers were answered. She was past ready to make this transition from life to whatever death may mean. “Please God, take me. I’m ready.” She used to cry out at night pleading with her god to let her die. “I want to die.” 

How realistic is it to think that someone of her advanced age, 103, would want to go on living? She felt her job was done and her body was done and it was time. She felt that way for years, and yet her heart continued to be strong, though the rest of her body had seemingly given up. 

Suffering with dementia, she had diminished cognitive abilities, and yet sometimes she’d have just the right answer to a question. When we’d read to her, she often made all the expected and appropriate responses to the story or article, laughing or making other sounds of comprehension. 

The stories would float away almost immediately. You could read the same story over and over to her, as you would a child who likes the same story to be read again and again. Only in Mom’s case the story would seem new. 

Dementia gives real meaning to living in the moment, as all the other moments simply fade away. It’s not purposeful mindfulness, but it definitely hits the core of it.

In this moment then, I’m off to focus and enjoy my own “now.” Hope you enjoy yours too.