In Just the Blink of an Eye
Time. Does anyone understand it? Does it even exist? I’m an old man, and still, I can’t exactly explain what it is. Scientists say time and space are intertwined. Maybe they are the same. How long is a moment? How long is the blink of an eye?
Last year, I was walking 4 miles a day with the confident stride of a younger man. Now, I hobble like an old man. I can barely walk a quarter of a mile.
In just the blink of an eye, my life changed.
One thing does not change: Time.
It’s October already. Here in the Great Lakes region, it’s been unseasonably warm. Uncomfortably hot. Yet, the slant of the sun and the shortening of the days have told the trees and the plants that summer is over, and it’s time to go to sleep. The tomato plants are brown, the flowers bedraggled, and the trees are starting to dress in their autumn colors. And if I really think about it, it seems all of these things happened in just the blink of an eye.
It seems like yesterday I was planting tender tomato plants and nascent flowering plants in the cool, wet ground in the springtime. It seems just a moment ago I was mowing the lawn for the first time this year, and now, after my illness, I have had to hire a lawn service to help me maintain my yard.
And it all happened in just the blink of an eye. Spring came and went. Summer came and nearly crushed my soul.
And autumn has arrived in just the blink of an eye.
All this got me thinking about how our lives can change in the blink of an eye. We can be healthy one moment, and in the blink of an eye, we can be bedridden and sick. A child can be born in the blink of an eye, and one day we will die in the blink of an eye. Great ideas flash in the minds of ordinary people in the blink of an eye, yet those ideas can change the world forever.
A dictator seizes power, enslaves an entire civilization, and changes millions of lives in the blink of an eye. We can go from freedom to slavery in the blink of an eye.
A soldier battles bravely for his country one moment and, in the blink of an eye, is killed. That one moment in time changes the lives of so many others, his family, friends, and loved ones. Yet it all happened in the blink of an eye.
We fall in love, make life-changing decisions, make mistakes, get ideas, conceive a child, give birth, do some of the most important things in life, and even die, and sometimes we do these things in the blink of an eye.
A moment of thoughtlessness can turn a friend away forever. A moment of bad judgment can ruin our lives – as well as the lives of all those who love us. We can make friends and lose friends in the blink of an eye.
Anger can turn a loving person into a person filled with rage and hate in the blink of an eye.
Bad news arriving from far away can turn our laughter into tears in the blink of an eye.
We all have only a limited amount of time on this earth. And whether we live to be 100 or die at 50, our lives will seem shorter than the blink of an eye.
The times of our lives that take our breath away may never be as important as the moments that do not. Often the things that we have not planned, are the ones that we remember most… all the things that can happen in the blink of an eye… that first kiss, the first soft, spring morning after a long harsh winter, the sound of robin singing, the smell of the air after a summer thunderstorm, the smile of a child – all just everyday moments in the days our lives, things that happen in the blink of an eye, and yet may well be the moments we will treasure most.
Some life-changing moments, like the birth of a child, a child’s first step, a child’s first word, or the last gasping breaths of a loved one who is dying. All of these can happen in the blink of an eye, yet the sum of these moments makes our lives.
Someday, every one of our lives will end in just the blink of an eye.
In just the blink of an eye, we can make or break a lifetime, hurt a friend, think a thought that sparks an idea that changes the world, or end a life.
This moment or the next might just be the most important moment of your life. It’s not the things you plan that matter most; it’s the things you don’t plan that matter most.
The best things and the worst things in your life can happen in just the blink of an eye.
And the most important things in your life can happen in just the blink of an eye.
Enjoy the good times and make the most of the difficult times.
“Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed…”