Counting Moments...Because Moments Count

 My dearest friend went away to visit another friend of his in a city in the South, and we spoke today by phone.  Both of these men are in their fifties, and they've been friends since boyhood.    However, time and distance (and funds) keep them from seeing each other regularly.   So whenever they are able to get together, it is a rare treat for them both. 

He told me today that his friend is experiencing some severe health challenges, and he's not sure how much longer he'll live.    Details were given, but I won't disclose them here, since this is another human's story, and if it's to be told it should be told by him.   My friend, however, was saddened by this, and despaired because he realized quite suddenly that there wasn't much time left for them to spend together. 

I reminded him that he has right now.  These moments that they spend together now count.  They matter.   They are, perhaps, the best moments they will ever spend:  because now, both are aware of their limited availability, and there is perhaps no more talk of nebulous times in the future. when they might get together with meaningless promises made of what might happen then. Now, there is only now. There are no more tomorrows, or next weeks, or next years.  It's all right now. 

All moments matter.  We need to learn to live them intentionally. 

This awareness is most important, because it makes us truly alive.   Present. We cannot imagine the future or worry over it with anxiousness, because it is not there.   We cannot become consumed with thoughts of the past because it will erode the time we have now, and now is more precious that what was.   It is the peak of human experience, this poignant now, and we are all experiencing it, whether we realize it or not.  All of us, at any moment, are living our last now, and we may not even be aware. 

My friend is counting not days and weeks with his friend, but moments, and those moments are beyond price.    It is in these moments of intentional living that we find infinity - we learn to be eternal, without thought or care of yesterday or tomorrow.  We lose our anxiety over the future, since it does not exist, and we lose our care over the past, since it is gone from us, too.    This right now is how we will be forever, in a perpetual moment suspended between yesterday and tomorrow, even when our tactile senses fade and we are biologically deceased.   We will live still, in this present now, and all the moments of our lives will be like one - right now.