In the Blink of an Eye

In 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?

I was taking my daily walk yesterday. It’s October. And 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 has 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 the blink of an eye.

It seems just 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, and here, in the blink of an eye, I’m only going to be mowing for another couple of weeks. Spring came and went. Summer came and went and autumn arrived in the blink of an eye.

All this got me thinking about how our lives can change in the blink of an eye. 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 sighing breaths of a loved one who is dying. All of these can happen in the blink of an eye, yet together they make our lives.

And, someday every one of our lives will end in the blink of an eye.

In 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 minute or the next might just be the most important minute 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 most important things in your life can happen in the blink of an eye.