The Gift of Being Present

Oct 6, 2026

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone we love is our undivided attention.

When Max died, we were there.

Not just physically there. We were completely, absolutely, 100% present.

We had several days to say goodbye. We tried what we could to help him. We spent time with him, loved him, comforted him, and stayed with him. We knew our time together was coming to an end, and there was nowhere else in the world we needed to be.

And I’ve thought a great deal about that since.

Because there was a time in my life when I might not have been so completely present.

For years, I had allowed legal disputes, injustices, and the behavior of other people to occupy far too much space in my head. I spent countless hours researching laws, writing letters, documenting wrongdoing, and trying to persuade people in positions of authority to do what I believed was right.

Even when I wasn’t actively working on those things, they were there. In the back of my mind. Waiting for my attention. Taking up space that should have belonged to something else.

Eventually, I made a decision to stop giving those disputes so much of my life.

It wasn’t because the problems had been resolved. They hadn’t. It wasn’t because I had changed my mind about what was right or wrong. I hadn’t.

It was because I finally understood that I could spend the rest of my life fighting those battles, and the people responsible might never change. The injustices might continue regardless of how much time, energy, or emotion I invested in stopping them.

And meanwhile, my own life was passing.

So I changed how I spent my time.

I put more energy into growing the nursery. I spent more time with my dogs, enjoying the ordinary, wonderful moments that make up our days together. I began paying more attention to the things I could build, nurture, and enjoy, rather than the things I couldn’t control.

And life got better. So much better.

Then came Max.

Losing him was heartbreaking. There is no way around that. When you love someone as a member of your family, losing him leaves a space that nothing else can quite fill. And he was not in pain. He was just letting go.

But alongside that grief, I felt something else.

Gratitude.

Not gratitude that he was gone, of course. Gratitude that we had been there for him. That we had given him everything we could, including our time.

And I realized something that has stayed with me ever since.

Had I still been consumed by those old battles, I might have lost some of those precious final days with Max.

I might have been sitting at a computer writing another letter. Reading another statute. Replaying another conversation in my head. Thinking about what someone had done, what someone might do next, or how I could make someone understand.

I might have been physically beside Max while mentally somewhere else entirely.

Instead, I was with him.

All of me.

And that is something I will never regret.

We don’t always get several days to say goodbye. Sometimes those we love are taken from us without warning. Sometimes there are no last conversations, no last quiet afternoons, no opportunity to say everything we wish we had said.

We were fortunate to have that time with Max, painful as it was.

And I am profoundly grateful that I had already made the decision to reclaim my life before those days arrived.

There is an old saying about letting people live rent-free in your head. Another reminds us not to let people walk through our minds with dirty feet.

I understand both of those sayings differently now.

It isn’t simply about refusing to let other people upset you. It’s about recognizing what their continued presence in your thoughts is costing you.

Because time is not an unlimited resource.

Every hour I spent fighting with people who seemed determined to behave badly was an hour I couldn’t spend doing something that brought me happiness. Every evening consumed by anger or frustration was an evening I couldn’t get back.

And someday, one of those evenings might have been among the last I had with someone I loved.

I cannot control whether other people act fairly. I cannot force public officials to make good decisions. I cannot guarantee that justice will prevail, no matter how much effort I put into seeking it.

But I can decide how much of my life I’m willing to surrender in the attempt.

I can decide to spend an afternoon working among the plants. I can sit outside with the dogs and enjoy the sunshine. I can laugh at their antics, appreciate their individual personalities, and be grateful for another ordinary day together.

I can be present.

Max is gone now, and I miss him.

But when I think about his final days, I don’t have to wonder whether I was too distracted to notice how precious they were. I don’t have to wish I’d put down the paperwork or closed the computer or stopped thinking about someone else’s behavior long enough to give him my attention.

I did.

We were there. We loved him through those final days, right up to the last minute.

And if there is one thing his passing reinforced for me, it is this:

The greatest victories in life aren’t always the battles we win. Sometimes they’re the battles we finally decide are no longer worth fighting.

Because the people and animals we love won’t be here forever.

Neither will we.

And I would much rather look back on my life and remember the time I spent loving them than the time I spent fighting people who never deserved so much of it.

Max had all of me when he needed me most.

That means more to me than winning any legal dispute ever could.