I'll be honest with you, I really wish I was one of those sophisticated, educated and experienced folks who writes for a living and knows just how to put all the words together. I'm not and I'm never going to be but I do have stories to tell, moments that touch the very depths of me. The truth is that in those moments when I am left with tears in my eyes and a humbleness within my soul that begs the question whether or not I am worthy of such moments I sometimes hear a voice that softly speaks to me and says it's alright to share. To be honest with you I worry about that voice and so more often than not I keep those moments to myself.
But there are times when I don't.
Why do you end up where you end up? What is it that finds you one day staring at yourself and wondering how in hell you ever wound up where you are?
The good Lord knows I could point fingers in just about enough directions that it would take a NASA engineer to figure out where I was really pointing. And in the end that might not be even close to the real reason for most all of it. Life happens and that's about as much as can be said most often. You do what you do and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
And yes I do know what I'm talking about because the simple, unvarnished truth of it all is that it didn't work out for me. I missed the mark so many times that I'm pretty sure that even the powers that be stopped counting. There were road signs along the way that literally glowed at me and yet I ultimately walked, sometimes damn near sprinted, right on by them. Why? Now that's the question isn't it?
Life happens and the only thing I know for certain is that it can't be viewed forward but there sure seems to be a hell of a good view through the rear view mirror.
In days now long gone he'd been a farmer. Nowadays I know that's what he'd still call himself but the truth is he isn't. These days he's a man who's been retired for a few years and when the winter comes to the Midwest he and his bride of 52 years travel south to Arizona and a timeshare in Scottsdale. And that's where I met him several years ago. And that's where I came to think of him as a friend.
I'd missed him and his wife a year ago and I'd heard that he'd had some health issues. The truth is I'd heard he'd had a stroke and that was as much as I knew. In fact the way the news came to me I thought that he hadn't made it. There was no way that I knew of to figure out the truth of it all and so as this season of the "Snowbird" came into being again with no sightings of them I thought the worst and accepted it.
She was taking some things out of her car as I was passing by and it struck me that she looked familiar. The number of people I see week in and week out has left me realizing that there's a whole lot of folks out there that look like other folks and then she called out, "Wally".
"Oh my God it's her!" I thought to myself.
I find myself thinking that I'm so proud of her to come back here on her own and all of that when she invites me in and says that he'd love to see me if I have the time. Do I have the time?!!? Yeah, I have the time.
And that's how I found myself talking to a man I thought had died.
The funny thing about it is that as he told me that at one point he just said it was time to let go and move on but he didn't. I'm not sure why but that's when we began to talk about some of the things that, when you get right down to the bottom line of everything, really matter. The things that we all do tend to gloss over and yet are so much of the honesty of life. We talked about what he has come to realize matters, really matters, and how the rest is just (my words here) fluff and distraction.
To hear this man who'd likely always depended on little more than himself as he turned to his wife with tears in his eyes and talk of how he'd come to realize how much she meant to him and how much he loves her for who she is and what she does each and every day for him was humbling.
And when I told him that I knew he'd do the same for her if things were different I will never ever forget how he looked right at her and said, "Yes I would." And there could be no doubt about the sincerity of his words.
I listened and I did my best to take in what I was hearing from both of them and I know that I've already lost much of what was shared. Still, what lingers for me is what came toward the end of our conversation; the feeling from both of them that so much of what we always tell ourselves is important simply isn't.
I read something from Willie Nelson about how one is happy in their life. I'll paraphrase very poorly but admit that this is how I took what he said, "If you want to be happy in your life then be happy in this moment for this moment is all you have. If you are happy in this moment then you are happy in your life."
We think we need to be this or that and we need to have this and that and if only we can have this other thing over there then... And yet what I learned today from a man who thought he was dead and the woman standing beside him is that what you really need is each other.
Over the days and weeks to come I'll be blessed to have moments when I will sit and talk with the two of them again. I will do my best to listen.
