Life five minutes at a time

“If you've gotten so far behind on posting your five-minutes-of-the-day why don't you just give it up?”   

If Grandpa Snyder had asked me that seven days ago I would've considered giving up this project of four years.  Life was too hard at that point and the tasks before me overwhelming.  It was all I could do to get through each day as I walked slowly towards the final event in saying goodbye to my beloved mother.

I am thrilled to say that today posting five-minutes-of-my-day, a photographic journey is once again a labor of love and an unexpected path to healing the emotional wounds grief has left behind.

Since May 24, 2014 I have been posting a picture a day representing five minutes of that day and I capture are for the most part images that brought me joy or were beautiful moments in-and-of themselves.

At the beginning of 2017 we started to post a daily retrospective - January 1st over the past four years and so.  It has been interesting to see that over the years I’ve captured similar images, a favorite flower’s first bloom or spring runoff flooding our local rivers and images of things that bring me joy, ice cream, our grandchildren, drives through our rural community.

2016 was a difficult year and as the images that were captured remind us it was also a year of joy and I found joy again as I took the time too catch-up on my posts for the past two weeks.  Through this exercise I came to the realization that while life at times is very difficult these difficult events are not the totality of our lives - the things that define our lives.  That over the past two weeks I still found images of joy to capture through the camera lens and as I looked back over the past four years joy shines brightly in remembered moments.

I will keep taking one picture a day and posting it on our blog my Photographic Journal so that I never forget that life is not made up of events big or small but of moments, moments I choose to captured and remember in images representing 5-minutes-of-my-day.

Grandma Snyder

©2013 - 2017 twosnydergirls

When Storms of Life Rage

2016 was a year of emotional storms, where at times it was hard to find that calm inner place. 

To find our spiritual centre, that place where no matter what is happening around you, you know yourself to be and to be loved.

January 10^th 2016 the storm targeted the life of Audrey a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt, sister, cousin, life partner and friend and just as a tree with dying roots struggles not to fall in the face of the storm surge we struggled against the knowledge that our family was in the process of forever changing.

On December 4^th 2016 the storm stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Our family had changed forever yet it remained the same.

The Dalai Lama describes how the waves on the waters surface can rage with the violence of creation, yet in the depth of that same ocean all remains calm, undamaged by the tempest above and this is how 2016 has felt. 

We survived as individuals, as a family, but were we unchanged?  

The shape of our family has changed, our shoreline changed yet the depths of who we are as individuals and as a family remains unchanged.

When emotional storms appear on life’s horizon prepare yourself with signs that will guide you to your spiritual centre.

Take into the storm things that will help ground you in the present moment and transport you to that calm place. 

Be mindful in advance of what you will need to not be sweep away into the storm.

Be deliberate in your planning and selfish in your protection of the time you will need to retreat to your spiritual centre.

Know that the storm will pass and you will walk once again into the sunlight to continue your life’s journey.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

Grief

There is little personal control over grief. 

It overwhelms without warning, at the most inconvenient times.

It feels like fear and we respond accordingly.

At times we run from grief avoiding it at all costs.

At other times we fight back becoming angry, frustrated, just plain not nice to be around.

While at other time we are frozen in the face of grief, unable to do anything at all.

How grief manifests is unique to both the individual and the situation, it is unpredictable.

People want to offer comfort, food, cards,... to give voice to their response to your grief. 

In turn they expect you to respond with gratitude that they have taken the time to acknowledge your loss.  

How do you do this if fighting or fleeing is your response?

Be mindful of how grief is affecting you, how you are responding to it.

Most importantly when offering comfort be open to the response you receive.  

You have become one of those expected moments when grief has overwhelmed.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

Hope Comes In Small Things

Grief is not a linear process, it sneaks up on you triggered by a word, a song, or a smell.  

The sadness is overwhelming and takes all of the colour and light out of world.

It is easy to give into the grief to darken the memory that life has placed in front of you.

Hope enters our lives in the small things, colour and light start to work their way back into the memory when we share it, use it to add depth to our lives.

Today our granddaughter’s were over and wanted to make dresses for their dolls and I was transported back to sewing lessons at the hands of my mother.

As we sorted through the doll fabric box we came upon a pair of dress pants that were mother’s many years ago which she gave to me for the purpose of reusing the fabric. 

Ruth fell in love with the fabric and is using it to make a Princess dress for her Maplelea doll.

And as we ripped out stitches, traced patterns and practiced sewing lined paper all in preparation for sewing the dresses tomorrow we laughed, remembered and hope entered our lives where sadness had just walked.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls