this life

Lately my perception , or awareness of life has been sharpened. The last few months have not only been packed with things to do, meeting deadlines, stretching ourselves, learning but also with quite a number of significant & poignant moments. The day I signed the agreement for the new store is the day I found out that my mum's illness had returned. The day was bittersweet and my heart was torn.
The day of the handover was the day I attended the funeral of my sister in law. We talked in the car after, about how we 'get' to be here. What a huge gift it is and how life is at the same time easy & hard, fragile and amazing.
In between I have made many trips to see Mum, and when I'm there , the excitement of the new store wanes as I long for the freedom to be with her , to be close at hand so she can just call out whenever she needs to. I think of the path that leads us to where we are, sometime far away from the ties of family . If I have any regrets that would have to be it. Being far from kin.

Yesterday we moved all our stuff to the new store. Some may think , 'what's the big deal?', to a large company with a huge staff, probably nothing. But this effort was a 'pouring out ' of everything I had and probably didn't know I had in me. A stretching, you know ,like how a weak baby bird stretches it's tiny beak to receive the worm from mama bird. Or how the man with the withered hand, stretched out what may have been a stump of an arm when his Teacher said "stretch out you hand and I will heal you", and him ,the man, thinking, in his head & in his heart
'I am stretching, as far as I can' and at once experiencing a transformation.

I'm planning to take it easy this weekend. On Monday we set up. By some stroke of sheer luck and a little help from the few dozen time management books I read in my younger days, and a lot of help from Philip, Ming, Mei,Sarah, Sin Yee & Teng Hooi, ( and Alma! God bless her) I am almost ready. Woo hoo!! Proof that you can say to a mountain, "Go throw yourself in the ocean..."