Timing is everything in life

As I write this, I’m sitting in a hospital room in Regina, watching my mother sleep. This morning, she had a fairly significant stroke and now she’s sleeping peacefully. Of course, we don’t know what kind of shape she’ll be in when she wakes up. We’re hoping she’ll still be able to walk and talk and feed herself, so she can stay at the senior’s home she’s been living in, but we won’t know for awhile. So for now, I sit and wait.

I marvel sometimes at how things work out. I live a long way away from Mom now. It takes me three days just to get here. But right now, I’m working in Regina, so when my sister called me to say Mom was having another episode, I was able to be there right away, and I’ve been able to be with her all day. Talk about good timing.

Life is like that, isn’t it? Sometimes, things seem to work out and you’re not sure why. Your timing is good or it isn’t. I’ve been so fortunate when it comes to helping loved ones leave this world. My father was sick for three years...and after awhile, we weren’t sure what to think. The doctors kept saying it wouldn’t be long, but Dad didn’t agree, and he just kept soldiering on. When his time finally came, I was a long ways away, in the midst of covering a provincial election campaign. I got a call that said I should come home soon. So I did. It turned out that Dad didn’t die that day, but I took a week off, just to be able to hang out with him. And not too long after that, his time did come, and I was right there by his bedside, in the house he’d built for his family. It was a privilege to be part of such an important part of his life...and mine.

And there have been others as well. My wife’s father died at home, surrounded by his entire family. It wasn’t a happy time, but it was as good as it could have been. And it happened just a couple of months after the birth of my son, who was born at home. Little did we know the roller coaster of emotion that we had climbed on to when Cory came into this world. No one knew that his grandfather would be leaving it so soon. But there was a sense of balance to the two events as well. Birth and death are equal parts of life. You can’t have one without the other.

For now, I’m glad my timing has worked out. And we’ll see what tomorrow brings for my mother.