I am kind of in love with the new show, “This Is Us.”  I love family dramas of any kind because while I can always relate to them on some level I also can sit back and think, “wow, this makes my family look SOOOOO GOOOOD!”  Don’t judge, you do the same thing.

I just watched the Thanksgiving episode and there was a part where two of the characters are talking on the front porch. The young woman asks the man what it feels like to be dying.  The man responds by saying that it feels like all the best parts of your life are flying around you and you can’t catch them.  He speaks about his son’s laughter and his granddaughter falling asleep in his arms and what it’s like to feel her breathing against his chest.

I am telling you, if you sit down and watch this scene and you let those words wash over you…it will change your day. You can’t listen to him and not want to call everyone in your family just to hear them speak, laugh, sigh, cry or even complain about their day.  It doesn’t matter because if you can step into this place of pure gratitude for what is happening around you, you will only feel the deep vibration of love resonating within you. It’s like when you have a crying baby who has been up all night and your are impatient, exhausted, and tears are falling down your cheeks and slowly she stops with that hiccuping breathing they do when they can’t cry another second and you know you are on the cusp of silence. In an instant, you transcend all impatience and negativity and you can feel nothing but the slow, sweet breaths of that baby who has finally given up and fallen asleep in your arms.  You can’t move because you don’t want to wake the baby, but you also can’t move because you are suspended in this place of deep awe and gratitude.

It’s also the moments when you are talking to someone and you both begin laughing so hard you cry.  You can barely breathe for the laughter that is uncontrollably pouring from your body.  You can no longer sit upright, you must roll on the floor laughing, crying, gasping for breath, but not really wanting to catch it because this is the best time you have had since you can remember.

These are the moments the character in this show was talking about.  Fleeting moments that if we aren’t careful, we might completely miss.  These are the ones that I imagine he was thinking of when he said, “they flutter like butterflies all around us and we try to catch them, but we can’t.”

Right now.  This minute.  It’s not too late to catch these moments and enjoy them.  Be present this holiday season and see how many “butterflies” you can catch.