I hope you’re enjoying the beginning of this new season, Autumn.

This post is not a happy one. But it’s about enjoying life fully. It contains first-hand tested tips to live every moment of your life. EVERY MOMENT counts.

My adored dad passed away, two Mondays ago. Suddenly.

I’m very close to my parents and I’m an only child. We’ve always been a unity of three, very close and very independent at the same time. We then became four and then five as my husband and Carlotta joined us.

I’m beyond sad and I miss my dad, terribly. I also feel the pain of my mum, and her sudden solitude.

Since I started meditating, years ago, I began to enjoy life more. To enjoy life in its small moments.
It doesn’t come automatically. It requires training. 

In August I managed to come to Italy despite the pandemic, and I spent the usual two weeks with them in Sanremo, by the coast. In our family home.

I realised that time was changing things, and my parents were getting older. My dad in particular. But instead of projecting myself into the sadness of the future – which does not exist yet – I managed to stay in the present (or return to it):

— “Next summer my dad won’t come to the beach” –>  “Look how he throws himself into the water… belly down, flouting like a leaf. He always does this! Carlotta is laughing, look how they look at each other under water”

— “Oh he walks so slowly, he’s not going to be able to go and buy the newspaper on his own next summer, this road is dangerous” –> “He always buys the newspaper. Every day. He’s already reading the first page while still walking home, so eager to know what’s in it. I like his curiosity”

And I enjoyed every moment. 
Enjoyed chatting with him of books and stars.
Of life and wars.
Of history and politics.
Of how good the dinner was and of movies to watch.

I took plenty of videos and pics of him and Carlotta. Playing. Lying in bed while he was telling her the story of Ulysses and Polyphemus. Pics of his green eyes.

These moments are those that fill my heart now. I did not waste them worrying about the future, I enjoyed them. What an immense treasure!

This was when he was with me. But it works also now.

While the last few days have been the hardest of my life, I keep catching myself returning to the present moment and stay with the pain, rather than already projecting myself into the future. Instead of ruminating about the past.

There’s a time for everything, and only living every present moment and every present emotion we create the possibility for the future. 

I spent a week into a suspended bubble of time, during which my mum and I grieved. In each present moment.

My meditation practice helped. It helped this summer. It helped last week. It helps now. 

When I teach meditation I always start saying:
– The past is past. We cannot change it.
– The future? it’s still to happen. It doesn’t exists yet.
– There’s only one thing we have: the present moment.

The past is gone. True. We can recall moments, and treasure them. But if we are not present while they happen, what can we possible remember? It’s only when we savour the present moments that we can treasure them when they become our past.
This is recalling and treasuring memories. Not ruminating.

One word of wisdom I REALLY feel to share right now is this: BE PRESENT! Don’t waste it.
Meditate.
Train your mind to be in the present moment.
Don’t let your tendencies -worrying about the future or ruminating about the past- sabotage your present.

Only when we’re present we can treasure our past, and we can plan our future with clarity, rather than fear or remorse. 

Savour your present.

And so the passage from summer to autumn for me it’s been also the passage from a life with my dad, and a life without his physical form.

And while there’s sadness and void, there’s also a treasure of myriads of moments we lived with him. And as long as we keep remembering these past moments, he’ll be alive in our hearts. He’s very alive in mine.

To a life to enjoy,
Laura