20140121 – Just Living
It’s interesting to hang out on Tuesday mornings and just look around at the patrons here at my favorite Tuesday hanging place. I wonder sometimes what is happening in everyone’s lives. Grandma and Grandpa with their two toddler grandchildren, a lone business man hard at work and wired for sound with his tablet snuggled in close to his laptop, several tables of retirees grabbing Tuesday morning coffee and chatting, a suit and a blue collar cheerfully engaged in casual conversation, a seventy-something with her paper and crossword puzzle; I guess it’s just living, each in his or her own way.
We see such small slices of other people’s lives, and yet there’s a wonderful and unseen richness to it all, a richness that we often take for granted. Or we ponder it so much that we grind to a halt, second guessing our lives and what we’re making of them. I’m just a natural ponderer so I find myself doing this all the time, but that’s me, just living in my own way. When people see me here on Tuesday mornings they may completely ignore me, give me a passing glance and nod, or wonder what in the world I’m writing about for hours at a time. They have no idea what a small slice of my life my writing is. Some may even think I’m a full-time professional writer – who knows?
Little do they know that I’m a cheerful Grandpa to two toddlers, or a senior board member at the chamber of commerce, that I own and manage three businesses, that I’m an amateur plumber about to repair a toilet at Mom’s condo, that I’m meeting a delivery guy in four hours to help set up a new lift chair for Mom, that I did four loads of laundry yesterday, that I cook a pretty decent pot roast, or that I enjoy singing in the church choir and biking and kayaking and watching sappy movies, oh, and pondering!
There’s really a lot of richness in all that, and it makes me happy. Am I a little disappointed in how some things have worked out? Sure. Would I do some things differently? Sure. Do I have regrets? Some. Am I on the lookout for the reason I’m here and am I trying to make it better? Always.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for Mom to be stuck in assisted living just getting from day to day. I think I’d need to be active and if I couldn’t be physically active I’d be mentally active. I suppose I’d look for the reason to live and act on it whatever it might be. Despite all her pain and discomfort Mom still says God must not be done with her yet because she’s still here. I hope she takes that as a sign that she is still important, that she can still make a difference, and that she just needs to figure out for herself what that difference can be and how she’ll act on it.
Is there richness to her life? You bet. Maybe her current state obscures that richness or at least her awareness of it. Just by being here she makes a big difference in the lives of her daughter and son-in-law, her grandchildren and great grandchildren. I pray that the good Lord opens her weary eyes, helps her see what a difference she makes and inspires her to keep on.
Looking for the richness in life and living…Pops