Everything seemed to come to a halt in March 2020 with the pandemic and the lockdown. We had to reset, reconfigure, rethink daily life. Maybe we liked the change, maybe we didn’t. Maybe some of both. We somehow adapted and kept moving forward. Our lives changed. A lot of us said things slowed down. And slowing down felt good to a lot of people.

My husband fell and broke his hip and elbow on January 12 of this year. He spent eight days in the hospital, and then came home to rehab. And things got even slower. Everything has been at his pace. He is progressing and getting stronger, bit by bit. Not quickly. He walks slowly with a walker and just beginning to try a cane. He needs help with most everything. I can’t rush him. He has to take his time to think everything through.

Ed’s memory isn’t what it used to be (neither is mine). He might ask several times a day, what day is it? What are we doing today? So we really focus on today, each day, day after day, just THIS day.

So I slowed down to accommodate this new pace in our house. Taking everything easy. Allowing a lot of time when we have to get ready to go to the doctor or get ready for in-home physical therapy. Or have breakfast or dinner. Constantly deciding that what I thought I would do today really wasn’t important. Ed and his care was important. However long that took.

In times past when Ed has needed more care, I might have been edgy or resentful because I couldn’t move at my usual quick pace, or I wanted the situation to be resolved. I didn’t want to be held back. Perhaps because we’ve already had to slow down, perhaps because I’m older, perhaps because Ed is 91, I am less resistant. I am more accepting. I am more present. This is what is happening now. Might as well be here in it, soaking it up.

This is a different kind of pace, different kind of life. Not bad, just different. Slower. And still good.

Just like I didn’t know the second before he fell, a few feet from me, that life would be changed drastically, we never know what’s around the corner or what will happen in the next moment. We could find the love of our life, or a beloved could die. Either way, best to be allowing grace here and now. It’s the only way to embrace it all – with Love.