Sometimes, what you are looking for will find you

Someday I’d like to make a list of all the things I’ve found while looking for something else.

Photos I’d forgotten. Bills I meant to pay. Or a missing lid to a bowl that finally turned up the day after I broke the bowl.

This may sound a bit odd. But sometimes it seems I need what I “happen” to find more than I needed what I was looking for.

Well, except a lid to a broken bowl. Anyhow, the point I want to make is this: Life sometimes gives us what we need, even if we didn’t know we needed it.

Take this morning. I was looking for something online. Never mind what. I honestly can’t recall. But in the process, I came upon a quote I’d learned long ago, and forgotten.

I’ll tell you the quote, after I tell you how I learned it.

My first husband taught high school, coached basketball and loved being outdoors, running at the beach, camping in Big Sur or hiking in Yosemite Valley.

I loved those things, too. OK, I didn’t love hiking, but I did it. Our three children spent more waking hours outdoors than inside. It was good for them and especially for their parents.

We also spent hours at games, both theirs and their dad’s. I like sports. And we ate at the snack bar, so I didn’t need to cook.

Those years passed all too quickly. Our two oldest were in college and our youngest was in high school when their dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He battled it for four years, while we kept living the life we loved.

When he was no longer able to run or hike or teach or coach or take a walk around the block, he lay in his recliner reading John Muir’s writings on Yosemite.

He liked sharing Muir’s quotes with me. My favorite was this one I rediscovered today while looking for something else:

“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us …. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”

In the years since we lost their dad, my children and I have tried to honor his memory by moving forward, living our own lives, singing our own songs.

Reading that quote today, I recalled when he read it to me. And I thought of how happy he would be to know that our children and I are happy; how much he would like (and empathize with) the man I married; how proud he would be of the people our children have become; and what joy it would bring him to see how beautifully they are raising the grandchildren he never met.

Loved ones leave us, but their love remains to watch over us and pray for us and cheer us on with every step we take.

Shortly after I read that quote, I got a video from my son, Josh. He had hiked to a waterfall with Jonah, who is almost 3, riding in a pack on his daddy’s back.

In the video, Jonah told me that waterfalls are made of water and come from rain.

Josh tried not to laugh, but gave me a knowing grin. Then they both waved goodbye and continued on their hike.

I wish you could’ve seen them.

I watched that video twice. And as I watched, I recalled a day years ago, hiking the Mist Trail to Vernal Falls in Yosemite (trying not to look over the cliff at certain death) and following Josh, who was almost 3, riding in a pack on his daddy’s back.

My children are teaching their children to love Nature the same way their dad taught them. And those children will teach their children to love Nature, too.

When we leave this world, we will leave behind us in the trees and flowers and birds and wind and rocks in the heart of the mountains — as well as in the hearts of our loved ones — our very own song of love.

I don’t remember what I was looking for today. But I’m glad that what I needed found me.