What Matters Most

Years ago, a very good friend of mine, Linda Dashwood, told me that on my birthday I should watch for a message from the Universe. It could come from anywhere, a song, a text, a page in a book. One year, my message showed up in something I misread. It was on a sign in a gift stop. I realized quickly that I had received my message, and went back to look again, but what I’d read wasn’t what it said at all. Still, the misread words were what I needed. My friend is no longer with us, but she remains very dear to my heart. I pass along her birthday instruction often. Watch for a birthday message from the Universe.

My birthday is in May. Each year I write my new birthday message into the front of my journal, so I can be reminded of it regularly. My current message is “What Matters Most”. I’m realizing today that my birthday message must be a very important one, because I got the message twice. First, in a birthday card: “Think of all the things that mean the most to you.” Then again, more succinctly, in the preface of a book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: “What matters most.”

In the past months, my health has been what matters most. I had major preventative surgery, taking off my breasts, because I have the BRCA2 breast cancer gene mutation. My future health matters much more than having breasts. I am glad I made the decision.

Now thanks to COVID-19, the requirements of social distancing are showing us what is really important, what matters most. Health, our own, and the health of our loved ones and community, matters more than school, or church, or hockey, or music festivals. When you are going stir crazy from cabin fever, remember what matters most. Call a friend, but don’t go out for coffee. Have a cup while chatting from a distance.

What matters most is love, and love, today, means staying home.