In Training

Could it be that all my training for grit

All my long nights watching my babies breathe in their crib

All my long hills feeling my breath burn running cross country

All my long labors to birth my children catching my breath with their first breaths

All my long out breaths accepting what is as my mothers memory evaporated as exhaled mist

All my years of training to take deep full breathes again after my daughter took her last breath

All my water sloshed breaths on my back swimming across lakes

All my rescue breathing my patients in the ER ventilating away death

All the steadying of my breath teaching four teenagers to drive

All my labored breaths at elevation

All my holding of breath under water

All my training for grit

for this Life of endurance breathing

Has actually been my training for the infinite Joy found in the very top of the arc of each inhale~exhale

The intimacy with life itself at the moments it takes your breath away,

and breathes in the awe

The Awe of the shared miracle of being Alive