Time; Our Most Precious Gift

I woke up this morning in such a negative place.   My alarm went off, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I felt this feeling of dread wash over me.  This was the week of Thanksgiving and my daughter was on vacation from school for the entire week.  I didn’t have to drive her to school, so why should I have to get up out of bed, when all I wanted to do is just lie there for a couple more hours.  But I knew that I still had to get up at the same time as usual because I had so many items to scratch off of my list before leaving town for the holiday weekend.  Immediately, I felt my attitude start to plummet as I got out of bed, mentally itemizing the list of to do’s for the day.   I had to get to the gym,  call someone to repair my washing machine, (I paused there to complain about how much that was gonna cost and what a rotten time for this to occur, just as I was leaving town for a holiday vacation).  I also had to wrap up the loose ends of pending business deals, pick up ingredients from the grocery for my part of the Thanksgiving meal and somewhere in the next three days, I would have to find some time to clean the house.  I was exhausted just thinking about it.  It’s no wonder I wanted to stay in the bed.

 To add to my list, as a part of my morning ritual, one of the things I do to start my day is to attend a meeting of an organization that I belong to, via conference call.   Reluctantly, and with the sourest attitude possible, I logged onto the call.  The voices I heard were familiar, but somehow they sounded a bit different today.  They were muffled and somber, as if everyone speaking had a really bad head cold.  And then I heard someone express their regret that they didn’t know her better before she passed away.  Finally I got it.  Someone in the organization had died over the weekend.  Then I learned who it was and instantly I felt a sense of guilt and shame.  You see, I’ve never actually met the people involved in this particular segment of this organization.  I only know them by their voices, their names and the portions of their personal experiences that they have chosen to share with those of us on the daily calls.  This woman, the one whom had died this weekend, had a very distinct voice.  Her voice was very raspy, it sounded like she had gravel of some sort stuck in her throat.  She also spoke extremely slowly, and all I could recall about her, is that every time she volunteered to read or speak, I sighed, sucked my teeth and rolled my eyes, and thought, “oh no, not her, her voice is so hard to listen to and she is going to take forever to get her point across. “  And that was the only point of reference I had to identify this woman.  All I could think was “shame on you Cherie.  Here you are complaining about minuet chores that happen to interrupt your beauty sleep and leisure time, when this poor woman was not given the opportunity to wake up or complain about not getting enough sleep, having too many chores or anything else. “And that wasn’t the worst of it.  The worst part of all was that, I had no other way to identify this lady in my mind, other than the fact that I was inconvenienced by her unpleasant voice and lengthiness of speech.  God sure knows just how to put us in our place, because I felt like the biggest jerk alive.

Despite my new found conviction and shame, I continued to listen to the call.   And to my surprise, the woman that they spoke of was more than just the slow speaking lady with the raspy voice.  Almost every person that spoke about her seemed to share some personal story of how she had touched their life.  Many of the callers shared how to their disbelief, and even in her dire circumstances, she was still able to give so much of herself.  Over and over again, I heard the stories of what a wonderful, joy filled person she was.  How she was continually grateful for every moment of her life, both the good and the bad.   And how candidly she shared her experiences, and how she used the lessons that she had learned to help others.  They also spoke of her patience, kindness and good natured disposition.   It seemed as though she had provided a warm, safe space, filled with comfort and refuge, to many people in need.   And apparently, to my surprise, she was able to do all this while she was confined to a wheelchair, and living in a nursing home.  I also learned that she woke up at 4:00 am every morning to join these conference calls because she lived in another time zone.  These were of course same calls that I complained of joining at 7:00am. 

Why is it that I had to wait until she had died to learn all of these things about her?  Why didn’t I take the time to listen past the sound of her voice to really hear her story?  Why didn’t I take the time to pick up the phone to call her and talk to her, if I thought she sounded so miserable?  For that matter, why had I not picked up the phone to call and get to know any of the people that I had been sharing this call with every day for months now?  At that point, I had to stop and ask myself, Cherie, is your life really that busy?  Are you really too important to spare five minutes out of your day to connect with another human being, doesn’t happen to be a close friend or family member?

Well, it didn’t really matter now did it, the joke was on me.  Clearly, this was my loss.  I had missed the opportunity to know and to be a part of the life of an extraordinary person.  I had created a life for myself where miniscule details dominated my daily existence.  And then I had the audacity to resent and complain about a life that I myself had created.  How silly is that? If I am feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and exhausted, I had no one to blame except myself.   Its so funny how a little bit of someone else’s reality can change the perspective we have on your own lives.  In the flash of a minute, your life can suddenly look so different, when our vision has been corrected through the glasses of a fresh, new perspective. 

So today I woke up thinking how lucky I am to still have the opportunity to take my daughter to school.  I still have a couple more years left to bond with her and time to spend with her before she goes off to college and starts to lead her own life.  Soon she will be following in the footsteps of her brother; he’s already gone off to start his life and figure out his place in the world.  I think about how  when they were babies, I couldn’t wait until they would sleep through the night and to be able to pour their own cereal in the morning, and how sometimes I wished that they didn’t always need me quite as much for every little thing.  And now that they are both grown, and the time has all gone by so quickly, I wished that I had savored those moments just a little bit more. 

I also think about how often I tend to complain about working out, when just four short years ago, a freak accident took away my ability to even walk at all.  I used lie there helpless in my bed and tell God how sorry I was for taking my independence and mobility for granted, and that if I was ever able to walk again, I promised not to take my health or my life for granted in any way.   God is so good that not only did He bless me with the ability to walk, but to the doctor’s surprise and dismay, He gave me the ability to run again.  Wow, how quickly I’ve forgotten where I came from.   And I had the nerve to complain about having to get up out of bed to work out and having to take care of my own body.  I should be ecstatic that I can actually get up out of bed on my own, never mind the fact that I can actually go running or work out at all.

And as far as complaining about having to pay to repair my washing machine goes, at least I have the money to repair it.  I can remember a time not so long ago when I could not have said as much.  And to top it all off, I also was fortunate enough to still have the means to go on my holiday vacation,  and  to buy food to share with all of my friends and family, which I am also extremely fortunate enough to have in my life. I’m sure we all know people who can not boast of such things.

But I’m sure by now you get my point.  We all can come to a place where we so easily take the gifts in our lives for granted.   Without the benefit of the right prospective, we can mistake the gifts that we have been given as burdens.  We can rush through our most precious moments and wish away seasons that were given to us in order to make memories that will comfort us in older, possibly lonelier years to come.

It’s easy to see how we can miss out on real opportunities to impact others, in ways that will count long after our time here on earth has run out.  Lately, these days, my clock seems to be ticking faster and louder all the time.   And as I sit still and listen and let the stillness of life surround me,  what I am finding out for me is this; the most precious gift of all,  the most valuable commodity  that I possess, the gift that no money can buy, the gift that can be wasted, but never acquired again,  the gift that I am most grateful for is TIME…memories of TIMES past, opportunities to grasp fleeting moments of the TIME in the present and if we are blessed and lucky enough, TIME to come in the future.