Our kitchen faces the backyard, and it is one of my favorite places to be.  I love to cook, and some of the best simple moments in life consist of preparing something delicious with an eye out the window on the comings and goings of my little piece of the world.  Our backyard is large, with massive aged cottonwood trees lining the back of the property.  When the days get long like they are becoming now, the sunsets stretch out for hours and cast beautiful shapes and shadows across this paradise reserved for my family.   The colors are lovely, and I love to be in their presence as I make my way around my sink and stove.

As I did just that a few weeks past, I was reflecting on this blog and what it means to me.  I was loading the dishwasher and feeling the immense pleasure of knowing that for the first time in many years, I feel like I am working hard to achieve my greatest aspiration: to write, and to share it.  The person who came home from Aurora is much more of a go-getter.  But even then, in my moment of minor triumph, a thought blossomed in my mind.  Am I doing enough?  Could there be more to accomplish if I was willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears?

My thinking turned to the odds.  And the fact that with every passing second, they become more against you.  In our youth, we do not feel the rush to succeed, but instead, the casual peace of much time yet to come.  As we go through life and we grow in to children, in to young adults, and then slowly but surely not-so young adults, the odds begin to turn.  Where once it would have seemed absurd to imagine life without a sibling, perhaps one dies.  Or maybe your parents were at a time young and fit, but now life-threatening medical complications to their existence seem almost expectable.  Consider that when you are attending high school, the death of a classmate is incredibly taboo.  But then reunions pass and so do some of your peers.  As you age, so does the body count that surrounds you.  And you must begin to consider where you fall in that.  Beckett has obviously made me deeply reflective concerning the time we have on earth and what we do with it.  My small moment of victory was humbled by the realization that I should be doing everything I can to live my life to absolute fullness.  Not with cliche intention, but out of commitment to appease my soul.  Because not only is every moment not guaranteed, it also less probable with each one that passes by.

Are you doing what you want to be doing?  Are you living your dreams and desires?  As time goes by, with each second, the odds become more stacked against you.  Your loved ones, your friends, the people you care about the most?  They become more likely to be taken from you at all times.  Cherish them.  Your hopes, your goals, the things you have set your sights on time and time again but often cast aside for the realities and strains that life puts at the forefront?  The opportunity to achieve them dwindles in each moment you do not commit to doing so.  Chase them.  Work for them.  Because the odds are against you.  They are against all of us.

These aren’t words of wisdom delivered on your graduation day or flowery advice shared over a glass of champagne at your wedding.  These are the cold and calculating words of a woman who buried her son.  When we are young, the world seems filled with time.  Time for school, time for love.  Time for children, time for travel.  A checklist with a long occasion for filling, and a sense of freedom to achieve at will.  I no longer feel that freedom.  I have felt the turn.  It did not seem within typical odds to lose my own child.  But when I consider it, it did seem very feasible that death was sure to soon come to my doorstep.  I am growing older, and as I do so, my opportunity to be touched by loss time and time again continues to escalate.  I have changed the pace on my path from a meander to a sprint.  I have places to be and only myself to get me there.  I will hope for good odds, but know not to expect them.  And I will explore my destiny in hast.