Have you ever had an experience where life drops into your lap a perfect situation, solution or moment, but you resist embracing it fully because you don’t quite trust letting go into joy completely?

Experiencing joy can  be hindered sometimes by a need to keep something in reserve, to be on the watch for the next bout out of unsatisfactoriness that you believe could be just around the corner.

That’s what nearly happened to me yesterday.

A family meeting with doctors at the hospital to discuss Dad’s situation and care needs could have been the start of a long journey of visiting places to look for available beds, with the usual ongoing discussions, potential resistances and differences of opinion.

Instead my dear sister had already readily located a place at a small 24 bed care home two streets away from the family home. And there was one bed available right now.

A potentially perfect place for Dad to acclimatise to living with blindness. A potentially perfect place for Mum to traverse the few hundred metres to and spend time with him.

On finding out an old mate of Dad’s already lives there, we could picture them engaged in teasing discussions about football. A potentially perfect place.

So much has changed for Dad with his loss of sight but with this care option much could stay the same. Mum and Dad could enjoy the ease of contact and time with each other and Dad could have familiar doctors in the much loved environment of his local town.

It can’t get much better than that when old age starts bashing you around.

I know it’s not wise to grasp and cling on to any ball of joy when it lands in one’s lap.

We can’t make it stay or keep it forever.

But it also doesn’t make sense either to resist opening up to fully experiencing delight whenever it pays its fleeting visits. Even when its a close neighbour to pain and loss.

So driving back from the hospital and noticing the tentative bubbling up of joy I decided to put on some music and sing and see just how far those grace notes could go.