The Last Lesson My Father Taught Me

My father died this week.  The last and perhaps one of the most important lessons he taught me was  to slow down.

Like many people, I lead a very full and busy life.  During my workday I am rushing from meeting to meeting, and outside of work, I am trying to fit in the things I love to do- theater and music and time spent outdoors.  And of course there is time to be spent with family and friends.  All of this adds up to a fast-paced life.  So when my Father lay dying this last weekend, I had to put on the brakes.  This was not easy to do.  It is not easy for me to slow down but it was the only thing to do.  There wasn't anything more important than just being there, being present. The errands could wait, the emails could certainly sit in the inbox for a couple of days or more.  Nobody needed me more than my dear Father and family.

There are other times in my life when I have gotten not-so-subtle signals about the need to slow down.  I once went through a patch of getting three speeding tickets within the space of one month.  This was when I was a busy working Mom, rushing between dropping off the kids, picking them up, getting to work and everything in between.  But there is a cost to all of this rushing.  Of course three speeding tickets signals that I was potentially a hazard to myself and others as I dashed around.  But the cost is more insidious than that.  The cost is that you miss the opportunity to experience the small things, the moments that can mean so much.  Whether these moments are at home, at work or in life.  When we rush, we miss so much.

Most of all, we miss the opportunity to feel deeply.  I have continued struggling over the last few days with the sense that I should be somewhere, that I should rush back to work or to rehearsals or to the endless list of things that wait for me.  But as I have heard from so many friends during this sad time, many of them have said, go slow.  Take the time to grieve.  Do not rush.

So I am not going to rush.  I am going to continue to wander about for a few more days and to feel deeply this terrible loss.  I hope that I can remember this lesson when I jump back into the fray.  I hope that I will slow down when I can to feel and to reflect and mostly to be grateful for what I have.  If we could all live to be 94 years old, with a devoted spouse, a large and loving family and many great adventures to point to, that would indeed be a gift.