Eureka Columnist

Time…friend and enemy…fleeting…finite and infinite…eternity.

It has already been a year since I wrote my first column for the newspaper, and it was really just a letter to the editor. It doesn’t feel like a year ago.

As a child, I spent a lot of time with my great-grandmother, Granny Brown. She was as round as she was tall, and had the best outlook on life with a belly-shaking laugh that always made anyone around her laugh as well.

She had many old sayings that are so true and I didn’t really grasp some of them until I became an adult. She used to tell me that the older I got the faster time would go. I always replied that time couldn’t go faster, that time was time. Well, it certainly does go faster. Yesterday I was 21, and today I am 61.

Another was don’t worry about tomorrow, it will be here soon enough. She said to just take care of what was in front of me and the rest would take care of itself. Today, I try to apply those adages to my life. As a child it felt like summer lasted forever, and that christmas would never get here. Now, I want time to move a little slower so I can enjoy the moment at hand, and spend it doing everything that is important.

Our journeys are made up of many emotions; good, bad, sad and happy, trying and regretful and those that fill your heart with pure joy and times of contentment. Each moment of that journey is like a quilt, when all pieced together it tells your story, of who you are, and how you reached this point in your life.

There are moments forever etched into your heart – like getting married, holding your babies for the first time, or your grandchildren, or the hard times like  sitting in hospital waiting rooms when someone you love is sick or having surgery, and those times when we lose someone we love – the hardest of all.

Recently, my family got to experience the best moments in time.  Rylee, my niece (the one who had the brain tumor) got married. The wedding was simple, yet elegant, and beautiful – just like Rylee. I cried as soon as her mom, my baby sister Jana, was escorted to her seat. She is doing remarkably well after her battle with breast cancer. I cried some more when mama came to her seat (she survived multiple heart complications and surgery) and I really cried when Rylee came down the aisle – as beautiful as ever – and looking like the picture of health and happiness.

To have her sister Macee (who survived the traumatic brain injury) standing there smiling as her maid of honor, and all of Rylee’s sorority sisters and best friends dressed so prettily and the epitome of what we imagine any good Southern wedding to be.

Cole, the groom, and his fraternity brothers and best friends lined up across the altar.  And his cousin officiated the ceremony, and it was funny, touching and sweet.

The reception was held in the country – at a hunting lodge – and in a big tent.  A band played and the dinner was very good. Seeing friends I haven’t seen in a long time was so nice.

There were so many moments that were special; however, the most precious of all was when Rylee and Cole danced the first dance, and her dad, matthew, stepped in and then my dad (who was critically ill a few years ago) stepped in, and the look of pure joy on his face and rylee’s was profound.

Oh how I wanted this moment to last forever – family celebrating the best of times. We all cried, and without giving voice to the fact, we all knew what a precious gift we had been given. That we were all healthy and able to come together and we knew it was only by the grace of god because there were many reasons this night could not have been, or that some of us could not have been there.

We all wanted the night to last forever, and it will in our hearts and minds. I will not take any moment, or person, for granted.  We have today and the right now. Make the best of it. Let go of old grudges, forgive those who need forgiving, and love those you have in your life. Look for the joy and blessings in each day, as there is always something to be thankful for.

Stand firm in your faith, and know that you can spend eternity with those you love if you believe, and I believe.

Time – it is precious.