It was Albert Einstein who said, “People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.” Immediate gratification is not the currency of a mother, a farmer, or a bond investor.

While there was no wood to chop, I did mange to produce a few visible steps forward yesterday. The squash plants were pulled, and I hand-tilled the soil for the next planting. I weeded all the front beds, had dinner on the table when my husband got home, and spoke kindly to the children all day long (except for the times that I didn’t). Even my patience remained untried, as no solicitor interrupted my life to sell me auto insurance.

Late at night in bed, I mused over my perfect day with a Mitford book (recommended by a reader a few posts back), whilst nursing a bowl of cherries instead of a baby. I congratulated myself on having a good day, which should’ve been a sign in itself. If I pieced all these days together, yesterday’s day would resemble a sort of life I’d like to live. A good life merges the sacred and the secular and doesn’t draw a line where one ends and the other begins. A string of good days forms the garland of a good life. Life isn’t a box of chocolates; it’s a bunch of moments, it is.

As I relished in the satisfaction of a day well spent, the baby and the two-year-old began to tag team their needs… all night long. It was exhausting and more trying than a solicitor’s phone call. It was my attitude, however, that stunk more than the situation. It’s easier to be holy when things are going your own way, but that isn’t real holiness, eh? They carried on and on, hollering something fierce. There was no relief, except for the hour between two a.m. and three a.m., when they decided to rest recharge.

So, suffice to say, I had a good day… until I didn’t. It was like a good book whose ending stunk. It somehow dampens even the good part. If a book is 90% good and 10% bad, the only time the 10% matters if it’s at the end. It ruins the whole book. The end matters.

If the end matters—which it does—and we don’t know when the end of our lives will be—which we don’t—then shouldn’t we live our ordinary moments as if they’re the ending ones? There’s a lesson in here, I’m sure, but the phone just rang.

I don’t want to know who it is.