Thursday is our trash and recycling pickup day. So every week, when Wednesday rolls around and it’s time to take out the bins, I say: It’s Wednesday again!? It’s hard to believe yet another week has passed.

There’s nothing like the death of a loved one to shake us up. With the death of my husband, it seems time moves at a seriously fast clip. Truly, sometimes it feels like the sands of time are actually slipping through my fingers. The only way I can really know that 40, 50, 67 years have passed is because of all that happened in that time. I can’t actually feel all those years I have lived. I know that there are fewer years ahead of me than behind me, but I’m not sure I can actually grasp that. I know we’re all going to die, but it’s still a shock when people we love actually do transition.

The only antidote is to be present, be here now, inhabit the moment. Check in, what’s happening now? What’s true right this minute? Anything we can do to get off autopilot and focus right here, right now keeps us aware and able to notice and maybe even enjoy this moment of our lives. I don’t want to miss the joy even a moment of what life is offering me. Nothing has to be happening. I just want to notice and take it in. Just stop for a moment, and breathe it in.

Louise Hay said the power is in the present moment. Each moment we can take a breath, which connects us to Spirit, to our Higher Self. Connecting to that loving energy is where all the true, permanent power and strength is. All the human power that is based in a false foundation not infused with love, and will eventually collapse. Love is the only permanent power.

So I try to make friends with death. I know it will happen to me. I saw the Reaper (didn’t look Grim) a few weeks before Ed died in a vision, or an apparition walking through our kitchen. So I try to be curious. I am willing to be present. To sit even for a moment while I am typing this, close my eyes and breathe. Just a breath. And another breath. And feel this moment. Everything that needs to be attended to or sorted out is still there, on the periphery. Right now, I am centered. I am in my core. I remember I AM my Higher Self, merged with and animating my body. I breathe in that Love that I am, that you are, that everything is. It’s like resetting, rebooting, coming back online.