Grin and bear it

“Through clutter and chaos •

through worry and fever •

such matters matter not •

such fevered battles fought •

Will cease and return peaceful to you” – Clutter & Chaos - me

It’s been a stressful couple days, but nothing we all can't come out stronger from.

My daughter cried herself to sleep last night; from out of the blue she was afraid of death. Well, probably not out of the blue, considering she had experienced if first hand at age 2 ½ … but still.
She was sobbing after I had put her down to sleep. “I don’t want to get old, I don’t want to die” let me tell you, when you hear that come out of your 5-year-old daughter it breaks your heart. I told her it would be a very very long time before she will have to worry about that.

So I let her settle down a bit. Then I hear more sobbing from her room later…
…. “I don’t want you to die”. And then it hits me … hard.
It’s all in the Halloween fun to talk about death and all the other spooky things, and other kids may have just let the topic run on by. But when it is this real and you’ve lost half your parents to death at the age of 3 it has a truly personally emotional meaning.

I think of death a lot, because of the way I’m wired, it’s an every day discussion and symbolic bargaining with myself. I have to consciously choose life every morning. So when my daughter hugs me and goes to sleep tonight saying “Don’t worry, I won’t think about dying tonight” … I let go with a jealous sigh of relief.
I choose life every morning because of her, and her brother and my entire family.