As I rounded the corner of the Emergency room nurses station, I saw my partner’s two physicians looking over reports on the counter. My heart sunk as I noticed the solemn look on their faces. Returning to my partner’s (Kent) room, I took his hand in mine and called on all my courage. Minutes later, the doctors entered our room and delivered the devastating news. “Kent , you have 12 tumors in your brain…” Their compassionate delivery somehow helped this news penetrate my awareness without resistance. I became present to a vast feeling of love permeating the space.

Then, Kent became tearful. In the moments that followed, past and future concerns rushed in. Suddenly I felt underwater, drowning in a sea of feelings and words that I didn’t want to hear. Over the next three days, we learned about the probable origin and spread of cancer throughout Kent ’s body and his grave prognosis. We were told he had just a few months to live.

The following seven month journey was the most difficult experience of my life. Although the challenges and lessons learned could easily fill a book, the one I want to share here involves the transformative power of meeting the moment, “as it is.” What often appeared in my reality during this process shook me to my core. My first response was often resistance. ‘This cannot be my reality! No!’ Disbelief, anger, self pity often flooded my psyche.

What usually followed were thoughts such as, ‘but Lynn, this is your life right now. There is no escape. This moment is for you to embrace.’ Up to this point in my life, I felt I could control most outcomes with varying degrees of success. Not so now.

I can’t do this, my mind would say. I don’t know how to do this! This ‘I can’t’ and ‘I don’t know how’ usually brought me to a place of surrender. As my mind let go, a perceptual shift would usually follow. Past judgments and future concerns receded. Seemingly, out of nowhere, a spacious awareness would slowly arise. In those moments, though nothing in my outer world had changed, including my feelings, suffering was notably absent. Judgment and my interpretation of ‘what was’ had dissolved into acceptance. Love permeated the space once again. As I relaxed into that space, movement and action seemed to flow effortlessly.

Learning to meet the present moment “as it is” was a tremendous help following Kent ’s death. This awareness allowed me to meet my feelings of grief more fully and completely. Feelings arose that I had never experienced such as an exquisite bittersweetness. This new feeling melted and opened my heart. A new sense of joy began to replace sorrow. The power of ‘being with what is’ in my life continues to impart it’s gifts each and every time I remember to gently shift my attention from past/future concerns. This moment, without those references, is where I am free to simply be open and free.

This article was published in the April, 2016 addition of SIBYL magazine. in memory of Kent Warner Smith (1941-2008)

Pictured above: my father and me having one of our last conversations before his passing in 2014.