i thank You God

You finish watching movies like "Seven Pounds" with no one but yourself and a roll of plush toilet paper plucked from the nearest bathroom (because, once engrossed in the film, Kleenexes cannot be got), late at night when you should have gone to bed two and a half hours ago, and the tears are drying in the corners of your eyes: your spirit clears, becomes a pensive pool of heavy thoughts, beautifully garbed -- like enigmatic goldfish you see swimming in black-bottomed garden ponds, breathtaking as they rise to the surface in red and white and yellow -- and you ponder the cutting divinities and sweet inbalances of your life. One thought -- one sinuous, shimmering fish -- catches you, and you study it for a moment that seems to speak for hours. And then, if your name is Nicholas Maughan, you write a Facebook note to understand it, and secretly hope somebody reads it and understands it, too.

My brother, my exceptionally pregnant sister-in-law and my niece arrived from Phoenix last Friday, visiting with the feeling that this, perhaps, may be the last time they will see our Grandma. We had quite a lovely time with each other: joking and teasing and arguing and eating and eating and eating and just being a family. My two-year-old niece woos me with ever more skillful practice each time I see her, and neither of us can conceal our glee at our rendezvous for very long. I loved watching my 16-year-old brother as he giggled and napped with her; I smiled at my parents, relishing their new(er) roles as proud and contented grandparents; I felt a subtle joy (and a keening for my own "someday") when I saw my brother quietly touch his wife's arm or tender some other silent affirmation of "I love being your husband."

Anyhow, the seven of us spent about an hour and a half at Grandma's house Sunday night. An uncle, who had been with her before we arrived, said his goodbyes shortly after we walked inside the door. Grandma has recently begin confusing this uncle with my Grandpa, who passed away. "Why don't you just come back after you've finished up? Isn't this your home?" she timidly asked him. I looked at Mom, who looked at me, and we both kind of smiled that smile which says, We'll get through this as gracefully as we can. And then, my happy little niece walked in the room, talking and laughing and calling for my mom, "Gamma! Gamma!" and I saw the first real smile on my Grandma's face I've seen in months as she said, "Isn't she just beautiful? She's so cute!"

We took photos of Mom, Grandma, my sister-in-law and her daughter and pictures of my brothers and me sitting with Grandma. I remember thinking that the only person missing was our own Elder Maughan, away in the Dominican Republic. But I kept thinking, too, about the strange and beautiful, bittersweet place we were in: We were a family in the middle of all the parts of life -- my niece, really just beginning her human experience; my 16-year-old brother, turning into a young man; my brother and his wife, readying themselves to welcome another soul into this world as they try to provide for the one they already have; myself, discontent and struggling through my twenties to find some peace and confidence; my parents, watching their children as we fashion our adult lives, wincing as we make choices they may not always understand, and beaming when they can sense our happinesses; and my grandma, at the end of her life. Her body is getting so small, and her mind is stealing away into confusion, but there are times when I still see her, times when she recognizes her Self. We were ALL THERE that Sunday night, in a perfect circle of life and finding ourselves present in the power of our abundant love.

I've had this particular thought swirl to the surface -- my beloved little koi-thought -- many times since Sunday: I know I was there, experiencing that, but at the same time, I wasn't. I was one who saw, a spectator. I saw everything. It was one of these moments when God gives you His eyes, and maybe you see your life the way He sees it, with the Truth, and you trust that everything is right.

I think that God gives this gift of Seeing constantly, more often than we're willing to recognize. It's too delicate and too sharp to have floating in my awareness all the time, but man, how I search for these lucid and breathtaking moments of awe infinitum.