"Suspended Animation"

You know what I mean? It's that moment in your daily life when something hits you right between the eyes. It stops you cold and you can feel life "suspend" in time. It lifts you off the ground, so you don't have good footing anymore. You can't quite catch your breath, and you feel a bit queasy. You can't get a grip on the ground so that you can move forward. It holds you up by the back of your neck like some ugly ogre (the kind with a big club and a whorty face.......ick). Maybe that is why the feeling of suspended animation can be accompanied by the hair going up on the back of your neck, it's the ogre, and he's got you!!

It happened to me this week. News from home, my mom was not well. She was going to have a procedure to make her better. At that moment, I felt the ogre reach out and snatch me up. Many questions came, when, why, who. All the questions were asked and answered. You would think that this would be enough to make ogre put you down. You know the drill now, so on with it. But no, it's more than that. Knowing is not, well, knowing. You are in that time of suspended animation because, NOT knowing, you can't move forward. Not until you know you can move forward with that person, my mom, again.

As I think of this concept, of moving forward together, it makes me realize that although we all move forward in one way or another, in our own separate lives, whatever threads that bind us all to one another move with us. When one of us stops, we all stop so as not to break the thread. So, does this make the ogre the puppeteer? Who's in control here? Hmmm, good question...............................One does see that we all, as a whole, move together. No matter how long the threads, if one person on that thread cannot continue, the rest of us will wait until they can.

Suspended animation is an uncomfortable thing. You can't move forward, all you can do is look back. That backward glance isn't always the best view either. Most reflections in the rear mirror are fraught with misgivings and missed chances; to tell someone you love them, you are proud of them, you miss them, you need them. All the things that you want to say but don't, stare straight at you when you are in suspended animation. You make a pact with the ogre.You will say these things, and much more, if he will only let you go and you are once again able to move forward, surrounded by the threads of love and care.

We all will be here from time to time in our lives. Suspended animation. It's potential is always right around the corner, ready to stop us in our tracks. We go from day to day, smug in our comfort zone totally ignoring the ogre in the room. Don't do that...............Don't become so confident in life that you forget in an instant the ogre could grab you and haul you right off your feet.

Yes we will all be there, of that I have no doubt. I guess the lesson here is while you are hanging there at the end of that dreadful ogre's arm, biding your time, waiting for your loved one to move ahead with you, make sure the view in the rear mirror holds no regrets.