So today it’s been one month since Pat and I came home from Arizona and went into hiding, sequestered in our own homes. Oh, we’re cheated a few times and met to take our dogs for a walk, or made a grocery run but for the most part we have obeyed the rules. They say absence makes the heart grow founder and I wait for the day when I can be with my family again. I wait for the day Pat and I can walk hand in hand and say our goodbyes with a hug and a kiss not an elbow bump.
I celebrated my 79th birthday this year and one of my goals was to enjoy this last year in my seventies as a young seventy some-year-old, because looking ahead, at least for me, eighty is a whole new ball game. Then I fell and broke my hip and now my knee on the same leg is failing me, so what was physically normal for me has changed significantly. This with other health problems has dampened my spirits and put things into a whole new perspective. I used to see tomorrows as just a long line of now’s, as it seemed to me that the days flowed unimpeded, one into the other. Now, and here today, I find myself in a reversal, hoping tomorrow will be better than yesterday.
As an author I know how important it is to end your story with a proper finish. It’s usually at a point in your writing when there is no more story to tell. So many times, when I was writing my stories, I didn’t want them to end. Ending them was ending my characters and I felt they had much more to offer than I had put down on paper and I guess maybe that’s where I am now. There is more story in my life to be wrote, I just need to be patient and wait for it.
The New Christie Minstrels, a group in the sixties sang these lyrics from their song, “Today,”
“I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glories; I can’t live on promises winter to spring. Today is my moment, and now is my story, I’ll laugh and I’ll dance and I’ll sing.” They didn’t live in the past and they didn’t beg for the future they just wanted the here and now. While we are quoting musical lyrics, Merle Haggard sang, “Lord for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time.” Yes, in these days of uncertainty we need to celebrate our yesterdays and never let them die, hope for our tomorrows with all of our hearts but live for today. That being said, now we need to take Merle’s advice and take, one day at a time.
As I lament in my self-imposed exile, feeling sorry for myself, my thoughts go back to my father-in-law who left his family to go fight for his country in World War II. He left behind a toddler son and a pregnant wife. When he finally got home his new born daughter was two and a half years old and his son was five. Think about your children and think about the first two and a half years of their lives and the memories you have of their birth, their first step, their first word, Their baptism and that first birthday party. The day you took the training wheels of your sons’ bike and the day you taught him how to throw a baseball. Then there was the two and a half years his wife had to go it alone, not knowing from one day to the next if he would come back alive or not. Crying in her pillow, in a half empty bed for the man she loved. Yes. My father-in-law missed all of that. It puts our plight right now into perspective doesn’t it.
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