The curious thing about life is that just when I think I am done, there is something more. Something that defies gravity, defies age, defies limitations, if I am looking . . .

It is easy to dismiss the Daisy.  Dancing in the morning breeze, she acts more like a flirtatious giggly maiden in the spring of her youth than her more serious cousins. 

Yet beyond her youthful demure, there is a substantive side to the Daisy.  She is composite flower, a complex system of flowers within flowers squeezed together.  And then there is her name, from old English for "day's eyes". 

Hmm. . ..flowers within flowers. Eyes within eyes. Eyes that never blink.  What does she see that we miss? Might she hold the secret of our forever spring, that "elusive "something more" we seek?    

Something More . . . Our Nomadic Heart

Early explorers looked to Earth's horizons, knowing there was something more than their eyes could see.  Is it not also in our nature to stretch beyond our inner horizons?    Our nomadic hearts searches for something more. 

It pulls us higher and higher.  Defying gravity.  Age.  Limitations. You feel it too, when you retreat to your quiet sanctity where your eyes within eyes search for meaning. We look to the great expanse of the sea and understand Tolkien's timeless thoughts:  

"Not all those who wander are lost."

Something More

Something is beyond
The scope of my vision,
Something young,
Something forever.

I get so close,
But cannot hold on.
I try not to blink--
Too soon,
It is gone.

But I want to see
To the horizon and back.
I want to know
All that I lack.
For I know not what lies---
In my own Day's Eyes.

Eyes that look are common; eyes that see are rare.
                ~ J. Oswald Sanders

 Eyes Within Eyes That Don't Blink

 A stroke, partial paralysis, and three years later, the long journey home. 

How would we know that in his final hours at my dad's bedside, we would be witnessing something extraordinary. 

My brother Larry, my daughter Lauren, Dad’s lady friend Rosalie and I were there with him, watching every long and labored breath while he fought to hang on to life.  The kind people at hospice suggested we tell him it is ok to go.

Dad, we said.  "You have worked hard all week." (He often hallucinated that he worked for the hospital.)  The weekend is here, your paycheck including your overtime arrived, and now your brothers up above are looking for a fourth in pinochle."
  
Did he hear us?  It was hard to know. Both eyes were closed; but that was not unusual.  Dad had a condition known as Apraxia, when eyes are unable to fully open. One eye was frozen in a forever-blink, like an eye that forgot it could open. 

But suddenly it all changed. His next breath went deeper, more pronounced, more urgent. Stunned, we could only watch.  

Both eyelids flew open wide.  His face once a colorless gray was now radiant and glowing with light.  Both arms were rising upward. Paralysis denied.   With open palms, he was reaching up, almost tenderly, as though touching something, something unknown to us.  

And then he began to speak.  

Rosalie shouted, "Oh no! He is groaning in pain!"

I said, "No. He is not in pain."   A hint of a smile was curling my lips. 

"No", I repeated.  "That's Italian."

It was an old-world dialect that I unfortunately could not translate.  But clear to me, he was excitedly speaking to someone. Our feet were planted on a solid floor, but he was no longer tethered to anything on this earth. And with a blink of both eyes, he left us. 

He went to a place beyond our realm, a place he had eyes to see, a place without pain or suffering. What a privilege for us to witness this extraordinary transformation. ** 
 
                                     ***************************

The most beautiful experience we can encounter is the mysterious.  Do not miss it. Seek it. For we are made to look for it, for something more.
       -----Albert Einstein

Don't give up on your life.  
Why live in a forever blink?
Amid the loss and the pain,
More gifts; unclaimed.
---g. hill

It is a comfort to know what we are seeking is also seeking us. (Rumi)

Take a look around you, 
Discover the view, 
If you haven't noticed,
                    Please do.  Please do.                       
      ------Sesame Street

Do you have a beautiful transition story to share?

*More about the Daisy: For math lovers (like me), the intricate patterns of flowers and seeds follow the Fibonacci Sequence, a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones as thus: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. This sequence was introduced to Western mathematics by Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, in1202.

**Want more mystery??? There is more to my dad’s story. Six months after my dad’s passing, my friend Sandy, 2000 miles away, called to tell me about and something extraordinary. She was meeting with an empath to connect with her husband who was killed in an auto accident. The empath had some meaningful things to say but was suddenly interrupted by another spirit. She said someone wants you to know something. He is your friend’s father who passed on six months ago. He said, “Tell her I am playing cards–pinochle.” I told no one about those final minutes with my dad, telling him his brothers in heaven needed a fourth in pinochle. In fact, I forgot about it until a few hours after my conversation with Sandy. My dad and Sandy had a close relationship. He loved to tease her, and she laughed at his jokes. So, perhaps your thoughts of the afterlife might be angels flying around? Think again. Maybe there’s more.

See Also: Winging on Petals of Hope and Greenery, The Great Blending

Winging on Petals of Hope

Greenery: The Great Blending

All images are from pexels.com, pixabay.com and AI generated.

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