Perspective

The phone rang. I nearly didn’t answer having worked so many hours in the last few weeks I could hardly sit up. For some reason, my hand reached out and I was surprised to see my childhood friend’s mother appear on the caller ID. “Hello?” Her voice was quiet. “Hi, how are you?” “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” I ticked through all of the thoughts I have had about this friend in the last week who I haven’t spoken to since April. This very afternoon, the thought to call her crossed my mind but I put it away. Now her mother was on the phone telling me that she was on a ventilator, unable to breathe for herself and that she was dying.

All of my frivolous thoughts of my insane project and trying to find a place to live in California were immediately placed into perspective. Her two children will be left without a mother.

I hung up. I went outside. I rode my bike past mailboxes, gardens, couples walking dogs, children playing tennis, rusted wheelbarrows, rose bushes and antique trucks. The sky was coral and purple. The grass a vivid green.

I am alive. The world is beautiful. I wish my friend would wake up, but that might not happen.