My Mother used to say, “What you do, comes back to you.” Never before had I placed such effort into the integrity of this practice than before birthdays and any other gift-giving holiday.

Initially, I thought she might have been speaking in some sort of ‘parental code’. At just six years old, I was interested in the advancement my spiritual practice. I wanted the Strawberry Shortcake scented doll and the Bonnie Bell lip glosses in cherry cola red.

And when the holidays came and went, I thought to myself – “Well, isn’t this just great? All this effort and ZERO reward.”

In fairness, perhaps at such a young age I wasn’t yet ready to explore a circle of knowledge beyond the reach of my two tiny hands. Like most children, I thought in terms of playthings and toys; pop-up-books with levers to pull, cartoons on Saturday morning and my favorite stuffed doll.

Until one morning when my Mother sat me down, “I have some terrible news,” she said. My best friend Alex had died.

He had been struck down by a car just outside the fields where we once played. Though the driver swerved, it wasn’t it time. Alex died on the gravelled stones of an old country road.

“Ok,” I said. No one I’d known had ever died. I didn’t know what to say or, worse yet, how to act. He was gone, that’s all knew – he wasn’t coming back.

And so, I did the only thing that felt ‘right’ to do – I hopped off the bench, ran into the woods and cried.

“We could play adventure,” he grinned wiping the caked dirt and sweat from his brow. But I didn’t go, because it was hot outside and my ‘things’ were at home.

They were very last words we shared with one another.

I remember running until my legs buckled with pain. And, when I stopped I remember thinking – “this is all because of me.”

It took many years before I stopped running through the wild scenarios – racing in last minute to snatch him from the path of such an untimely death. If only I had said ‘yes’, might he still be here today?

One day as I was waking, I pictured him skipping rocks by the stream. That’s when I realized, how very much his passing had become part of my world.

Everything I had ever done or said; the choices I had made. Even our musings shared here each day, all now invariably connected.

In that moment, my sense of smallness lifted; the barriers once firmly wedged now nearly translucent in appearance. I no longer felt the burden of me or mine.

The world before me just simply was – and, I was a smaller of that. No more, no less. Just as you, just as Alex and each of the ‘adventures’ we shared.

In peace, my friends…

Namaste ❤