Fragile

Within the past week I have seen so many ducklings--babies just starting out. Friends are expecting babies. New life is springing up everywhere, even in the blossoms of the trees and the bulbs long forgotten during the winter shooting forth beautiful blooms of lavender and fuchsia. A new semester began and a new ward was formed, new friendships have been struck.
Everything is new! So much life has been breathed into the world! And yet... I have been witness to this new found life's fragility. Within the past week, I have seen two (though I am willing to believe there are more) dead ducklings. Just this evening, I may have even helped (or perhaps even doomed) a young sparrow to its final resting place. 
While I was out blues dancing this weekend, a motorist crashed across University Avenue. Just in the past couple days I may have said or done something to cause a still young and blooming friendship to freeze and die away. 
How fleeting! Who can say when something we thought would continue to live and breathe might be snuffed out, cut off from the life force that is pulsating from the breath of spring? 

I wish I wouldn't take so much for granted. It hurts me in an intensely personal way when I see death.

When I was young, perhaps in my 8th grade year, my parents brought home a young kitten they had found outside of our church building prior to their going on their weekly date. They took the time to come back home, kitten in tow, and helped me find a box and warm blanket for it. They asked if I would mind watching over the sickly creature and advised me that it probably wouldn't make it through the night.
It was obviously invested with bugs, it must have been beaten up by some other creature for one of its eyes wasn't completely functional but my parents thought perhaps we could ease its way from the world. 
I tended to the kitten for a good majority of the evening, holding its sick body close in a warm hand towel (for it was too tiny for an actual blanket) and I slept with its box beside my bed. Mom and Dad had brought some kitten food home for it and when it mewled in the morning, I carefully picked it up and carried it to the kitchen. It had made it through the night, more than I had expected. I set up the smallest dish we had so it could eat... and I watched it try--it wanted to try! But the anguish and hurt of its small body had been too much and I watched as it gasped out its last breath. 
My heart broke in a way that day that hasn't really happened since. Yes. I have experienced the heart break of new loves dying out, friends leaving, even family members passing on. But to watch a creature die right before your eyes after all you could do... it is not an experience I wish on anyone. 

The point is-- life, in all its forms, is fragile and fleeting. You never know how long you will have to experience it. So... experience it fully, full-steam ahead. Live. Live your life in such a way that you don't look back and say, "what if I had done/said that?" Do. Say. You may hurt others. You may hurt yourself. Be wise in your words and actions. I am not saying I am at all wise--for there are moments I certainly wish I had thought out at least a little more but then again I feel it is all really trial and error. 

"It is both a blessing
And a curse
To feel everything
So very deeply."

d.j.

But I am glad that I feel deeply. It reminds me that I am alive. That I still have time to make moments--for "we remember not days but moments". So I challenge you to let yourself feel and remember to stop going through life ignoring the moments or the fragile things of life. 

Feel.
Live. 


P.S. The bird from earlier flew off when I went to go visit him just now. I think he may just make it.