'This last year taught me what time is really all about"
Sometimes, it feels as if we are Alice in Wonderland, and we never really know what time it is. Like the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and Alice, we all are stuck at 6:00 p.m. But we know in our hearts it is really later than that. But how late, really. (Remember that catchy tune from 3 Dog Night in the 70's) "Does anyone really know what time is it:, does anyone really care". Well I tell you, God knows what time it is. And God really does care. What time is it really on God's clock for our lives? Do you want to know?
We are forever changed as the events and passages of time carve their wisdom, their pain, and their seasons into our soul. As Lewis Carroll wrote in (Alice in Wonderland), "I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then." I know I can't go back to yesterday's for any other reason than a school lesson. I can look back to 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago, and I can see with astute acuity what I could not perceive then. I didn't know life or the way time would carve out a melancholy yet hauntingly beautiful canvass on which the Creator would stop by to paint, into my soul. How can you know at 25 what you know deeply at 50? Even in a year's time, what I have learned since my beloved Ben went to be with the Lord has changed me. The death of a husband, sister, extended relatives and friends in a year's time has changed me. It was as if a magnifying glass was put to my soul, and suddenly, I could see, the flaws,. the imperfections, the wounds, the unfinished business of living, in both words and deed, with a clarity that was at the same time: fearful yet beautifully truthful, all at the same time. 'Suddenlies' have a way of doing that to us. 'Suddenlies' change us. I remember, a little more than a year since my husband's passing, the times he asked me to lie aside of him and watch a favorite football game, or watch a favorite movie for the umpteenth time. Uugh, I used to think. No, I don't want to watch this movie for the 50th time. I have more important things to do, I would think to myself. Now, I realize, nothing was more important than to share that moment in time with a man who so deeply loved and cherished me, and all he wanted was my time. I cherished and loved him too, but as we all do, we think we have all the time in the world, for this or that, or later we'll do, say, this or that. But sometimes, later never comes. This last year taught me that. I have forgiven myself for being human. You have to. Or you will lose your sanity, your soul. your perspective. If you expect yourself to be more than human (superhuman fatalism) you can't last the test of grace. I know that I know that Ben knew I deeply loved him, and, when God took him to heaven, I know the Lord showed him how much he was loved by us all, his family. That is enough. What can you add to perfection?
This last year, I think, how petty it was of me to get annoyed with a sister who could go on and on and on about some silly or mundane thing, or kvetch so about things which mattered little. My beautiful sister was sick for a long time. The illness that took her like in 2012 had a dual purpose: I see now that it also arrested my selfishness in the same year: little did I know that her death would cause me to see how selfish I really was, in ways that I could not see until confronted by the sudden loss of her. Most would say "but Liz, you're only human'. You can only take, listen to, hear so much. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, or guilty for. And technically, that may be true. But spiritually (where God lives - which is in the heart and soul of a person) - I knew I could have loved more, listened more, been a little more patient, a little more forgiving. But it was easier to dismiss as I can't take one more email, another phone call, another this or that. We all have our days when we don't have the extra grace for someone else, it is all we can do to take care of ourselves to get through hat day. This is not a guilt trip - it's a honesty trip. As I sit at this PC at Thanksgiving 2013 - and my family has just left for that long drive back home, and the food is put away, the dishes are done, and I am thinking about the intense quietness of the room after the lives I shared my growing up with have left this room, I am struck by how we really enter this world alone, and leave alone. My husband was on the ER gurney, and my sister died alone in the bedroom down the hall, and for those few seconds, I could not save them. But God was there. His angels were there. Was anyone more really needed than Him? After all, if God is not enough, what in God's name do we think we have to offer?
I chuckle when I sit in my lovely living room, and I remember when Ben would look at the clock on the hutch and it said "6:05" and the clock on the wall said "6:15" and the kitchen clock read "6:25". I can still hear him saying..."for crying out loud, I feel like Alice in Wonderland in here. What time is it really"?
I hadn't reset any clocks, for some reason, even the best clocks I could buy, would skip a beat or minutes here and there. Only the Atomic Clock upstairs kept that mean Greenwich time, and it was accurate. Ben was a man who hated 2 things in life: only 2 things I can think of. He hated being late, and he hated getting lost. (Both of which are two areas which have been a perpetual nemesis for me). Well, I know in the final analysis, Ben conquered both. He was on-time and ready for his departure from earth to heaven, he was ready physically and spiritually. And I know that his compass was accurate: I know that there were angels in the Emergency Room that night as they came to escort my beloved to his eternal home. I know, because I was there, and I know what I saw, what I heard, what God spoke to me, and what I will forever know.
The two most important things to Ben, he did well. He was on time, and in the right place, and at the right time.
When our 'time' is over, what will be said of us? Will we have been 'on time' for our generation, our family, our loved ones, our calling, our time on this place of earth. I hope so. And I pray I will end up being at the right place, at the right time. If we can do those two things well, we have done a lot. We will finish well.
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