ADD ANOTHER CANDLE . . .

            "So, what's it like to be 77?" someone asked.  "I'm unsure, having just arrived here" was my reply.  I am sure, however, that it happened VERY quickly.  Have you seen the post going 'round on the internet: "I thought growing old would take longer."  It is a constant challenge to continue looking ahead while also remembering . . . and reminders abound about the speed with which life moves.  Example:  I find it helpful to maintain a log recording the date on which I terminate client charts.  Reviewing that recently when a former client reactivated, I was more-than-surprised to note that ten years had passed since he was last at my office.  Ah!, the accumulation of "yesterday's".

            "That's in the past. Get over it" is an often heard admonition.  Only one problem there . . . the past is alive in and informs the present.  Consequently, our opportunity and challenge is to learn from the past and grow into the now.  Back to the Future (the movie) notwithstanding, no one has yet developed a time machine that enables us to go back and rework previous experiences.  What can be altered is how we understand those times and events and how those new understandings might guide how we live now.  Such, in my opinion, is not pollyanna-ish .  Do you now understand some pivotal event in your past differently than how you interpreted it at the time of occurrence ?

     For example, one of my brothers has lived in New Hampshire since the early 1970's.  That's a long walk from his native North Carolina.  He's there in large part because he needed a summer job after his freshman year at UNC- CH and it happened like this:
In the Spring of my freshman year (three years earlier), quite by chance, Mr. Whicker of the Placement Office met me as I was strolling through the Admin Building (not part of my regular routine)  and asked what I would be doing that Summer.  "There's a man in my office I'd like you to meet." Enter "Doc" Sobel, co-owner of Camp Winaukee in New Hampshire, on a recruiting trip for  counselors. I had a job!  And, three years later, I asked Doc to hire my brother.  While there, he met a co-ed from Syracuse University whose parents had a lakeside cottage nearby.  A few years later they were married.  Would he have practiced his medical profession in New Hampshire had he not needed summer work in 1959? 

     Second example:  In 1991, needing to make a vocational change, I returned to the United Methodist ministry and was scheduled for a specific location appointment.  Then a 'hitch' developed . . . the person at that location balked about being assigned to a new parish, ostensibly because the parsonage there had but one bathroom and he had several children.  At what seemed at the moment to be a significant upheaval in life, I had little option but to accept the assignment the other person had refused.  No one could have convinced me at the time of the view that I now have . . . it was one of the best things that could have happened for me.  Much of the course of my subsequent years has been positively influenced by that move.  After nine years in that  parish, there was a new appointment.  On my last Sunday, I reflected with the congregation my appreciation for the time there and noted that it had all  come about because the parsonage had had but one commode.

      Often, then,  there is a flow in our narratives that can best be understood by subsequent developments.  So it is for me as I now enter my 78th year.  Behind me are achievements, failures, near-misses, lost opportunities, 'dumb-luck' happiness as well as sadnesses. On it goes and the same is perhaps the case for most  persons in our society.  Life Review reflections can be a helpful engagement for older people . . . (and that does not mean we are ready to check out).  A few years ago, I led a small group of folks through a 'guided tour' of their history.  Various topics were selected, e.g., formative education, the role (or lack) of religious practices, family members, vocational and professional choices, significant losses, etc.  On each topic, they wrote a reflective three or four pages.  At our sessions, they had the option of reading these aloud (obviously there was a high degree of trust and confidentiality among the members).  At the end of the course, they had a short autobiography which some of them wanted to pass on to their progeny as a kind of legacy as surely as other heirlooms.  Would that I had such from my parents and other family. (See an article of January 19, 2014, in the New York Times about the benefits of writing one's story "Writing Your Way to Happiness")

      Whether or not a document is written, such reflections can enrich us as we move into 'next chapters'.

     As a timely coincidence, my wife who did not know that this post  was being written, showed me a poem written by one of her Facebook 'friends'.  With Larry Pickard's permission, I am including it here:
          
        "Aging

  "As I grow older from twig to tree
   I realized age doesn't bother me

    When I was young time went by so slow
    One thing about time ...you'll never     
     outgrow

   Now I've aged quite well it seems
   My restful sleep brings me  restful dreams

   My grandkids are grown and my pill
    intake too
   Thank God I can still remember my
     friends like you 
  
    I don't read the funnies in the paper
    anymore
   I check the obituaries to find out the  
     score

    Of how many friends and people I knew
    And how they died ... these stories are
     true

   I'm thankful for the time I have left here 
    on earth
   Everyone's countdown ...Begins at
     birth

   You can always love life regardless of
      age
   Like reading a life's book ..A time passing
     page

     So enjoy your ride while you're still here
     Your time will come ..there's no need to
        fear

     When your name is called and the time
       you must go
     That's when you really walk ever so slow

     Your not quite ready to checkout of the
       game
     But like all your past friends ... they all felt
      the same

     Oops false alarm  it's not checkout yet
     They gave you a reprieve ..something not
        to regret

    Another twenty years they tell you quite
      clear
     Countdown again ... this time is in years "



  




                              "I started out as a child"


  
    





So I am grateful for yet another candle on the cake . . . and for those who have been part of 'the ride'.  

    Satchel