Cypher(s)

It's usually a story, a moment, a sentence that spins me off in one direction or another. Today it was information about a complete stranger. It was sad. It's the kind of information that can and should change the momentum of our thoughts and our lives. Someone is dying. Someone who for all intents and purposes should not be. I don't know this individual personally, but does it matter to be human? I'm in a place in my life that I never thought I'd be at "just 30". But I'm here and I have mixed emotions about it; there are layers. But in hearing this story, I have to say, I'm certain this young man is not where he thought he would be either. And suddenly, as macrabe as this and his families story is, it beams hope. In the immediate sense, perhaps not, but in the true sense, absolutely. My heart aches for his wife and his children and naturally for him. The reality brings with it a sense of personal nothingness and a measure of guilt. Guilt because, just this morning, I was thinking about how bored I am and how frustrating this whole looking for a job thing has been for me. Personal nothingness is the "cypher(s)".

Cypher is defined in many ways with the majority being more rooted in a mathematical term or equation. But it also means something of no value or importance. In other words, zero, so still mathematically weighted. Whatever feelings I thought I had about my own situation went away this morning. I felt small and insignificant in the face of my own life and this man is dying, yet he's tall, he's strong in the world. He "knows where he is going". How easily we get caught up in our cyphers and forget that we did not build this thing. It is not our design; it is by design. We are all where we are for a reason and no it's not always fair. It's not right that this woman is loosing her husband after such a short period of time of what I understand as a happy union. It's not fair that she might soon be a widow and she is not yet out of her 20's. It is unjust that she will be a single mother and will have to explain to her children, when they reach the age of comprehension, what death means and that is what happened to their daddy. Before proms, first dates, first kisses, first loves and first heartbreaks by some little boy or little girl that daddy might not be around for to kiss and make better. What a task this woman has before her. I pray for her and at the same time, I envy her level of faith that was explained to me.

Rivers flow from my eyes on this one. I told my friend that told me this story about this man, this woman, her husband, his wife and their family that this is the precise moment along the road of life that you realize how bad you really don't have it. Things are never as bad as we believe they are. I admittedly got caught up in my own cypher, not the first time, perhaps not the last, but now I have a heightened sense of awareness about it. Some reference point of "shame on me" for being so selfish. There are bridges with people in my life I have torn down, have made impossible to cross and quite likely not in a position to be rebuilt. There are words I've used to cut into people like a butchers cleaver because, well I could, it was easy and I usually got the desired affect at the time. It was by design for me to hear that story today I feel. Beautiful design. This is a time of reflection. As sad as I feel in this moment, my emotions could never touch this woman's. I'm glad to feel this. This is actual. I'm standing on the outside of my cypher. I pray to always be looking in on it as opposed to being the driving force inside of it.