Finding Beauty amidst "Life"

I've felt like life has had a few dark tinges recently, like ghosts hovering on the edge of my world.

Yesterday marked 25 years since my mother died. I know intellectually that I shouldn't even let myself remember her death date - that I should focus solely on her life but I can't help myself. I was relatively young when she died of breast cancer, and there has been a gaping hole in my life ever since. Now, I am approaching the same age that she was when she died, and it scares me. I've never been able to visualize myself as older than my last memories of my mom.

I have a tendency to try to embrace life even more when sadness and fear stare me in the face. Sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's not. But, seizing the day is how I live, and I can't change it.

So, I keep moving, searching for the beauty in life, regardless of the ghosts hovering in my peripheral vision. Sunrises are changing by the day. The sun is arcing higher in the sky each day and thus the "sunrise magic light" is more fleeting. Shyla still glows at sunrise but for less time. And, sometimes shadows dapple her, like yesterday.

I also search for the beauty in life by using my trail cameras to observe our wildlife. I've captured lots of photos lately throughout the forest but my "agility course trail camera", which is just outside our bedroom window, has seen the most action.

Multiple coyotes pass it nightly. The female coyotes are in heat now, as shown by their bloody urine spots in the snow. That means that pups will be born in about 9 weeks, just about when the first Pasqueflowers (wild crocuses) bloom.

Bobcats have been regulars at the agility course too. One night, I captured a solo bobcat who was heading straight for the "pause table" (not in the picture).

A couple of nights later, I hit the jackpot. The mother bobcat and her kitten are still together! First, mom walked past the camera.

Then, her kitten passed it. Notice the lighter color of his fur.

The two of them spent close to 4 hours doing something before they returned by the same path. First mom...

And then the lighter colored kitten...

I smiled when I saw the two of them, obviously still thriving. That kitten represents the renewal of life.

So, life on Mother Earth gallops onward.

At first, I didn't think that I could get through twenty-five days without my mother and now twenty-five years have passed. I have my mother's watch that surprised me when it kept ticking, with the second hand sweeping in circles, after the moment of her death. It finally stopped, silently and without fanfare, sometime in the past couple of years... but the sun still rises every morning.