A Friend's Gift

Sometimes the most memorable moments of all are those not anticipated. Often the best gifts we can give to others is the gift of our time ~ our patience.

I seem to have gained a reputation of late for holding things up due to my inability to walk past an interesting flower without needing to stop and “quickly” photograph it. 

Usually this entails having to return to my car to retrieve my camera to take the shot, which inevitably requires shooting from a few angles as I look for the right light. This could take up to twenty minutes, or so the story goes, until I can move on and resume what we were doing.

My husband is particularly intolerant and sighs deeply when I appear for our morning walk with a camera over my shoulder, though he would insist that he is extremely patient with my photographic endeavours.

Mindful of my reputation, I arrived at a friend’s house last week for a long overdue catch-up over coffee, and after spotting a bright red bottlebrush in full bloom, I greeted her and tentatively asked if she would mind if I very quickly grabbed my camera and photographed the bottlebrush.

A good forty-five minutes later I was still happily exploring the garden, following my friend who was excitedly leading me from plant to plant, explaining why she had selected that particular plant and waiting patiently while I photographed each one. 

Later, when I thanked her for her patience with me, she waved it off, insisting that she had gained so much more by being forced to take the time to stop and look at her beautiful garden, at the whole world of colour and beauty that was right there on her doorstep - something she had not done since she had chosen the plants at the nursery quite a few Springs ago!

What a wonderful gift her patience was!

It made me think of all the times I have shown impatience and intolerance towards my children, being too busy to indulge them in their spur of the moment diversions, diversions which might have led to many unrepeatable moments of joy and happiness.

We only have one opportunity to live each moment and once we let the moment go, we can never recreate it. I know it is impractical to keep diverting each time something comes up. I, for one, would never get anything else done!

However, we do need to keep reminding ourselves of the importance of living in the moment and of having the patience to sometimes just let things happen.