It was a quiet morning in the woods, the kind where everything feels unhurried. My dog walked beside me, close enough that my little finger rested lightly on the lead. Nothing dramatic. Just a familiar rhythm between us.
And yet something about that moment stayed with me.
It reminded me of earlier years when my life was shaped by care in a different form when I was looking after someone I loved deeply in their final years, my darling dad. The nights were often broken, the responsibility constant, the exhaustion something I only fully recognised in hindsight.
What I notice now is how easily we misread our own contribution in those seasons.
We remember the moments we were tired. The moments we were short-tempered. The moments we feel we could have done more.
But we forget the simple truth of what we actually did.
We stayed.
We showed up.
We kept going when it would have been easier not to.
At the time, I did not think of that as strength. It felt like duty. Only later did I begin to see that presence itself was a form of love.
Not perfect love. Not polished love.
But steady, human love.
I think many people carry the same misjudgement about themselves. They overlook the value of simply being there for others. They discount the hours, the nights, the effort that no one sees, because it doesn’t feel dramatic enough to count.
But it does count.
It is often everything.
Now, in quieter moments, I find myself recognising that what I once dismissed as “just coping” was actually a deep form of care.
And in that recognition, something softens.
As I walked through the trees that morning, I realised that life does not only measure us by what we achieved, but by what we were willing to hold for others, even when it was difficult.
Sometimes that is enough.
Sometimes it is more than enough.
Peace be with you.
©DMP
