This week in my Write Here Write Now group, I offered the prompt: If time were infinite, I would…

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, the concept of time. The time we have here on this planet. The time we take to be with others, and with ourselves. The priority we put on spending time doing something, or “wasting time” doing nothing. Thinking about the past and wondering about the future.

Eckhart Tolle says: “The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” 

Last week my husband and I took an unexpected trip to Uruguay to visit his 90-year-old mother who was in the hospital. Her doctor called to tell us she wasn’t doing well. “You should come,” he said, “it would do her good to see her sons.” We interpreted that as it might be the last time to see her alive, so we got on a plane the very next day.

We called my oldest daughter who has always been very close to her abuela since the time we lived in Uruguay when she was 9 years old. She quickly made arrangements to leave her 5 children at home, packed her portable breast pump (she was nursing her 3-month-old son) and met us there a few days later.

I watched my daughter at her grandmother’s bedside, holding her hand, talking to her in Spanish, reminiscing about the times they had shared together, and showing her pictures and videos of her great grandchildren.

Every few hours, with the flip of a switch, her breast pump worked seamlessly under her shirt to sustain the life of her newborn, while she continued to caress her dying grandmother and tell her she loved her. 

It occurred to me that I was witnessing the circle of life right there in that very moment. The past and the present and the future all at once.

The gift of being a writer gives us writer-eyes in which to see the world, writer-feelings to experience life, and writer-thoughts to express ourselves.

So back to the prompt:    If time were infinite, what would YOU do?