The Audacity of Beauty
“How dare you,” I thought as the sky unfurled a spine of wings to fly it into the dusk. When you are engulfed by dread and sadness, it’s hard to know how to receive the moments of unspeakable beauty as they continue to arrive.
Because that’s how life works. Magnificence doesn’t wait for us. Wonder and beauty and awe exist in spite of pain and struggle and loss and grief and calamity. And thank goodness for that. It’s a never-ending lesson in understanding our capacity and resilience.
I’m walking through a weekend with steps that get heavier as it nears its end. On Wednesday I’ll take my father to his six-week orthopedic follow-up in Windsor after a fall fractured his hip and gave him a concussion. A release from the acute injury rehabilitation centre he’s been at is imminent and I have no idea how he’ll manage after I return to Toronto. Then on Friday a specialist in London will administer electromyography to make a definitive call on the progress of my mother’s neurodegenerative condition – namely, to confirm ALS. It is a special kind of hell to await a test result that will likely condemn her to an ugly and rapid deterioration towards death.
I feel defeated about so many things: Being a sole care-giver in the impossible situation of living and working full-time four hours away from each of them. Existing in a system that punishes single people (all care-giving benefits pay only a portion of salary so assume a double-income household where only one partner takes time away to give care). Being stretched to emotional, mental, and financial limits with fear about how long I can sustain the life I’ve lived caring for them this year.
And then on an early Saturday eve as I teetered on the edge of overwhelm the sky said, “Look at me.”
Beauty is bold. It is neither apologetic nor shy. It is also not discriminatory. It’s available to us no matter our circumstances. Because the ability to perceive it comes from within. And the seeing eye of our hearts can hold many things at once. Sadness and joy coexist every day.
Beauty is audacious that way.
