Balance appears when energy is in equipoise. It may be one of the biggest reasons my mother has lived not only long but well. She spends no time being discouraged because the time she has is too precious to her. That has always been true of her. "Life is fun," she told me recently. "Enjoy every day."

   Enjoy every day? In August, she will be 104. By then she will have lived 37,960 days. 

   I also asked about her thoughts on encountering God when she leaves this earth. "I'm not ready to leave yet!" she answered with the twinkle that has endeared her to so many.

   Look again at those eyes as she looks back at you from over a century of life. What has she seen?

   The year she rose up into this earth the Titanic sank. She has lived through two world wars, the Depression & the terms of eighteen U.S. Presidents. 

   When Mom was born, women did not have the right to vote. They did not gain that right until 1920 when she was eight. 

   She has birthed four children & buried her husband of sixty years. She has seen her share of heartbreak & not been broken. 

   Balance is the question. Her life is the answer. It is not that she has lived so long but how she has lived & who & what she has chosen to love. 

   So many people have a poor quality of life at twenty or fifty much less at ninety or one hundred. So many lives are out of balance. She is the first to acknowledge she has been lucky. She has has helped her luck by choosing moderation over & over.

   Mom complains so infrequently that it can be hard to know when she has a problem. She focuses on what is working not what is broken. 

   I take eight pills a day to guide my body toward balance. She takes one. 

   Our world is drenched in so much pain. As a compassionate caregiver you see plenty of that agony directly. 

   That is why the serenity I offer here lies not in my words but in the image of a woman that has lived the kind of life we all seek. A life where passion, love, fear & suffering can find balance by doing what William Blake called us to do, to "celebrate joy as it flies."

-Erie Chapman