Sometimes It’s a Small Thing

Joanne McGough is a very good friend of mine. She is a fellow writer and although we differ politically, I agree with her on one idea that she has. Sometimes, something seems to be only a small thing, but when we look back at our lives, that moment means so much. That seemingly small something can change the direction of our lives.

Many times, Joanne writes vignettes; a snapshot of something that has occurred in her life. Something hardly noticed at that time she experienced it and yet it reappears at a later date with power and clarity. It will replay itself intensely in her mind. The recollection surfaces and she tries to share these moments with her readers.

She is a retired nurse and sometimes those remembrances are of the people that she has cared for as a hospice nurse. Sometimes the moment is of a bird singing while on vacation in Ireland or trying to find a place to stay for the night as a stranger in a small Irish town.

There are things in our own lives that pass as a part of our daily living, but then we age, and we recognize just how precious that moment was. We can recognize how we changed from that moment on. We will understand the significance of that brief, flickering moment and it becomes a bright, unwavering spot in the history of our character. Most of us don’t take the time to write about it like my friend does, but if we look those moments are there none-the-less.

As I was making breakfast this morning, contemplating how I should write this blog, I began to make my usual rye toast and heated the skillet to fry an egg. I was pleasantly surprised when two yolks appeared as the shell parted and the egg plopped into the skillet.

Will this be one of those “sometimes small moments” or will it just be on file with all of the day to day occurrences in my life? I cannot see anything earth-shattering about the incident being so close to it, but someday, who knows.