Checking the Calendar

I thought I might get goals for the year thought about and written down today, because I guess I forgot when my anniversary is. I haven't done goals for the year by January 1 in two decades, first because this was a celebratory day for me and more recently because it's a day for... not mourning, exactly, because I'll be getting round to that soon enough, but more for a solemn gratitude. Some thoughts of what might have been with a thick overlay of thanks for 13 really great years. Would I have liked more years? Obviously. Does that stop me from appreciating what we had? Definitely not. 

After Chad and I shared the same couple of wedding pics on our social media year after year for a while, the last couple of years I've taken a few minutes with the photo albums on January 1 to choose pictures that I've not shared before, ones that can invite others in to enjoy the inherent joy of a wedding day. (This year, I missed. I thought I said something quite funny, but the first handful of Facebook reactions were all sad faces.) And as the calendar keeps pulling us farther and farther away from 2002, I get progressively more amazed at how young we were--the more so because in my combination of time, place, and faith community, getting married at age 23 was considered kind of late. Do you know how many relatives said at my wedding that they thought I was never getting married? 

Anyway, here we are cutting the cake, which was baked and assembled with care by my ridiculously talented auntie. The first time I saw this setup with the stairs and the fountain at a family wedding, I was blown away, but never thought of having such a thing myself until she and I were talking about my cake and she offered the fountain. I was thunderstruck and said yes so fast I think I might have broken the sound barrier.

Why am I making that face? No idea. Why is Chad hanging on to my arm like that? Also no idea. See the glass of sparkling cider on the lower left? My brother put all the cider bottles in the church fridge two days before the wedding with the labels turned toward the back, so our grandma would assume we had something alcoholic and would freak out without bothering to investigate. And so she did, exactly on cue. It's like she wanted to be upset.

 

That's the face of a man who will never forgive himself if he messes up the cake. That's our family wedding cake knife he's using, and I have no idea who is going to get it after me, since I have no children to pass it down to. But that's a problem for another day.

Happy 2023, y'all. Hug your loved ones today and enjoy the time you're given for as long as you're given it.

Start Again

Do you make Daylight Saving (no really, there's no 's' at the end) resolutions? Because I'm thinking it should be a thing.

In all my years of living in places
that observe Daylight Saving Time,
I've never been more ready for more of
this than I am this year.
 Bring it on, DST. Source.

I mean, if you did make a New Year resolution, we're two and a bit months in, and that's a great time to reevaluate, refocus, and perhaps redo. If you didn't, now's a good opportunity to consider what you'd like to do with all the non-winter days ahead of us, perhaps especially things that go well with longer sunlit evenings.

And here's a bonus for folks like me who enjoy hibernating in the winter months: Saving Time lasts 8 months. So if I make a Saving Time resolution, then I can make a Standard Time resolution for the other four months, when the days are short and my motivation to do anything at all is low. Managing my own expectations, as it were. Plus, that beats the rush for the next round of New Year resolutions--I'll be saying, "Already been going on this one for a couple months, thanks!" while everyone else is writing their hot takes on why they set goals instead of making resolutions.

I'm thinking today of my wise friend Ruthie's words about Lent a year ago: "I love that the opportunity keeps coming around. ... I love that even if you've forgotten New Year resolutions, you can start again with new habits/determination/focus to be a better you." Indeed--even if a DST resolution isn't your thing (and seriously, when it's abbreviated that way, it kinda sounds like a drug), maybe there's another time that is. New year? Beginning of summer? Beginning of the school year? Random Tuesday?

Whenever you start a new goal, Ruthie's point still resonates-- you can always start again. Don't give up.

Halfway

Lent always last a couple weeks longer than I think it will. It's not like I go into Ash Wednesday unsure if Lent is the same length every year, or like I don't know when Easter is, but I still always get a couple weeks in and think, "We're about done with this, right?" Case in point: I almost wrote this "halfway there!" post last week.

So, we're halfway through Lent now, and as spring creeps closer and Easter is almost upon us, I'm seeing more than usual the wisdom of having Lent as a pre-Easter preparation rather than before other Christian holidays. Last year, my first winter back in the Midwest after a 20-year absence, was barely any kind of winter at all. I said then and am still saying now that last winter was God's way of easing me back into the climate that I fled for good reason, but this winter has been a little bit closer to the early dark and freezing temps and one-warm-day-haha-fooled-you weather yoyo that I remember from my childhood. And it is wearing me down.

People were walking past these daffodils
like it's no big deal! Like the winter is not
sucking their lives away! I don't know how
other people do it. I saw these flowers and
did quite the happy dance right there on
the sidewalk.

The past week or so I've been eagerly checking every bush and tree that I walk by for signs of new life, and I'm finally seeing signs of reawakening--some tiny buds here, a set of early leaves there, and reliable bulbs like daffodils and lilies saying "ready or not, here we come," to the ambient temperatures and shooting out of the ground right on cue. These signs of life are giving me strength to journey on, and also to walk through the streets of Cincinnati singing "Wick." (No word on how my fellow citizens feel about my musical interludes. I like to think of it as a public service.)

Lent begins in the darkness of winter, at a time when the sunlight- and warmth-loving among us (me) are just about ready to throw in the towel and go hibernate for a few weeks until the weather gets its act together. But to take on Lent seriously is to push myself even when it's hard and I want to give up, so that on Easter Sunday and beyond I can rejoice at the new growth and rebirth taking place in my own life, for having gone through the hard days and persevered through the struggle. And then I'll look around at the trees and flowers and all of creation rejoicing with me.

Halfway there, friends. Let's persevere through these last few weeks of winter together so we can rejoice together in the spring.

Subscribed

I feel a bit weird, most days, writing about nonsense when the world is on fire. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I don't care or am unaware that there is more to be done in the world than share something I thought of while running last weekend or whatever random thing I'm on about. But it seems to be through the unimportant that my brain occasionally accesses greater truths, and when I manage to get those down, sometimes it touches people or makes them think (although that's not likely to happen today). I don't know how or when or why that happens, but the fact that it does is enough to keep me writing even when I fell pretty silly about it.

So! That being said, let's talk next year's Broadway in Cincinnati season. It's gonna be a doozy.

I was hoping, so very hoping, that we were going to get Come From Away next year. It launches its national tour from Seattle in October, and we get so many national tours in their first year that I had high hopes, which were promptly dashed when I got my upcoming season email. Seriously, though, this place is lousy with the arts and I have no complaints. My friend Bill knew what he was talking about when he told me to take a closer look at Cincinnati, and just this week I realized I've finally moved to loving it here instead of just liking it.

But never mind what we aren't getting. Here's what we are: Nine touring shows, eight of them either freshly off of or still running on Broadway, six of them (if my Broadway brain is working properly) in the first year of their tour, five of them in the first U.S. national tour of the show, and two of them the last two Tony winners for Best Musical. I was at a show at Aronoff Center last night and we're all keyed up for next season, on a heightened level of excitement that launched us into the very-energetic-on-its-own School of Rock. Love. It. Here.

Yeah, I think I'm okay with this lineup.

The one I'm most excited about? Not Dear Even Hansen, not The Play that Goes Wrong. (Look that one up on YouTube. I'm delighted it's coming here.) Not even Hamilton, although I'm in a differently excited realm than usual for that. Nope, I'm most excited for Fiddler on the Roof.

Why, why, why that one? After all, I saw it on Broadway. I've seen it live more than any other show, ever (that's counting high school and community theatre versions). What's left to be excited about?

It's my mother's favourite show. And as such, it's the first musical I ever knew existed. I knew the words to "Tradition" and "Sunrise, Sunset" practically before I could talk. I had wanted to take her to NYC before the show ended on Broadway, but timing and money didn't work out for that, so I promised myself that as soon as it came near either of us on tour, we were going. I cannot wait to share this with her--I'm going to trade in my great-but-miles-from-the-stage subscription seat to get us seats in the front orchestra instead so she can see every emotion on every actor. It's eleven months away and I'm already counting the days until we have what is certain to be one of the best theatre experiences of my life. (She already knows this is my plan. I'm not ruining the surprise.)

And that's why I'm so excited for next year's Broadway season in Cincinnati. 

What Not to Say, Again

I wasn't going to bother with this post in 2018. I've written it down a few times now, with updates as appropriate, and I thought, "People who are reading my blog have probably already internalized this and don't need to hear it again." But then just a few weeks ago, a Facebook friend announced a loss, and I watched in resignation as her page filled up with dumb stuff and I thought, "Yeah, I need to write it down again." I said so on Twitter, and this happened:

We need a reprogrammable ubiquitous Clippy.

“It looks like you’re trying to be comforting. Would you like help with that?”

— Michael Ekstrand (@mdekstrand) January 9, 2018

I took a bunch of pics in a cemetery
once. Those pics have really come
in handy.

Indeed. And even if I hadn't reached that conclusion, my cousins' experiences last week have only served to underline this need. So, here it is again, and please feel free to share it as broadly as you like in the hopes that well-meaning but poorly equipped friends can get some fresh ideas. And maybe that the insensitive clods will at least have a go at keeping quiet.

For the times that you don't manage to stop yourself in time, shake it off and do better the next time. Whether we like it or not, the wrong words will pour out of our very human mouths when faced with other peoples' grief. Also, it's good to remember that while most of these things that I suggest you not say are pulled from the consensus of widows groups and similar sources (yes, I did more research than just living through it), grief is idiosyncratic. It's possible you'll run across someone who's okay with these statements. But it's easiest not to count on people in grief hearing what you mean and not what you say, not when there are other options.


Part 1: Things That Are Better Left Unsaid

1. For the love of everything, please don't race to be the first post your condolences on Facebook. 

If you don't know for sure that all family and friends who should hear the news firsthand have been informed, find something else to do with your fingers while you wait for the closest relative to post first. I recommend a good cup of tea and perhaps a crossword puzzle. Honestly, the deceased is not going to get any less dead if you don't say something right away. Even if your intentions are good, please wait. Go ahead and send a text to the widow(er) if you like--but again, don't expect an immediate response, or indeed any response at all. It's not a grief-off.

Also, if you think you should have been among the first to get a phone call and weren't, or you read it from someone on Facebook before you got the call, take any aggravation/resentment you may feel and find a healthy way of dealing with it that doesn't involve airing your grievances to the bereaved. Ever. This does not have a statute of limitations. Give the family some slack--there are only so many times anyone can say, "My [family member] died this morning" before it gets to be too much.

2. "Did you know he was sick?" or "Was this a surprise?"

My aunt and cousins have just had to deal with (and are probably still dealing with) being asked this. I cannot stress this enough: if you don't already know, it's none of your business right now. Full stop, no exceptions, especially in the first few weeks when the bereaved probably don't want to share what happened hundreds of times. Other people have almost certainly asked before you, so please restrain yourself. Ask a more distant relative, if you must, but not the people sitting in the front row at the funeral.

I got asked this so many times that I started telling people that a pulmonary embolism is an acute condition that can happen to anyone at any time, which is not 100% true, but usually gave the questioner reason to ponder his or her own mortality, preferably somewhere else. If you don't want this treatment, it's best not to ask.

Caveat: after a while, people started to phrase it as, "Can I ask what happened?" which at least gives the bereaved a chance to say "I'd rather not talk about it" if that's how they feel. (And if that is the answer you get, back off immediately.) If some time has gone by and you've still never heard what it was, this is probably the way to do it. Just please don't assume that every dead person was harboring a secret fatal illness.

3. "S/He's in a better place."

This may be true, but you shouldn't say it out loud in the presence of family members who are struggling just to stay upright and survive the next minute. Hawaii is also a better place, but I wouldn't want him going there and leaving me behind, either. If this is comforting to you, say it to yourself. Don't say it to the family.

And the next is like unto it:

3. "It's comforting to know that s/he's with Jesus."

You don't know whether this is comforting or not. (Spoiler alert: For me, it's not, even though I believe that it's true.) So also keep this one to yourself, if it helps you.

And the next is like unto it again:

5. "God needed him/her more that you did."

No, God bloody well did not. I don't understand why people of faith have so many awful platitudes we've cooked up for times of crisis, but it's time for us all to forget them. If this is the best you can do, just sign the guest register and take a seat with your mouth closed. This is a terrible thing to say, not only because it's not comforting, but also because it turns God into some kind of weirdo body-snatching alien from a bad horror movie. Just don't.

6. "How are you?" or "How are you, really?"

I know, I know. It seems like a well-intentioned, innocent enough question. The problem is, everyone wants to put the emphasis in those exact places. The further problem is, when asked with any kind of emphasis, the question carries a connotation of "You can tell me the truth, even things you don't want to tell other people, because I'm being all kind and understanding!" Yes, even if that's not what you mean, that's how it sounds, and that being the case it can imply a closer relationship than you truly share with the bereaved. Steer clear.

On the other hand, asking "How are you?" without any weird emphases and being open to an honest answer, or to no answer at all, is not as bad. If nothing else, "How are you?" is how we open a lot of conversations, so it's at least a common convention and is less likely to be misunderstood. However, know in advance that the answer may well be an exasperated, "How do you think I am?" So tread carefully.

7. "Were you close?"

Okay, I pulled this one from my personal archives. Obviously, this isn't something people ask widows. (At least, I hope not!) When I lost uncles in 1997 and 2001, this was all anyone could ask me. Fortunately, I haven't heard it this past week. So this one might be an age thing, the result of young people overall having less experience with grief. Whatever the reason, please don't ask this. They'll probably tell you without you asking, anyway.

8. Anything that might be trying to get the person to look on the bright side.

We're not going to get to the bright side any faster just because someone is trying to "help" get us there, no matter how good your intentions are. This is, in fact, one of those times when looking on the dark side is totally appropriate. There's a road out, but in no universe does someone come out of the darkness faster if you forcibly shine a Maglite into their face.

I've probably missed some important ones, but this should be enough to get you started. Above and beyond all else, think before you speak. Always. That's the best way to save everyone some aggravation, embarrassment, and heartache. And of course, I'm not leaving you hanging without some replacement ideas. Keep reading:


Part 2: Things that are good to say

1. "Please text/call/Facebook me, even if it's the middle of the night."

This is not for casual acquaintances. You should only say this to someone with whom you already have a text/call/Facebook relationship. You should also edit it to fit your own boundaries--if you have small children in the house, 2 AM phone calls may not be how you can help, for example. Only say this if you are able and willing for the person to take you up on it.

2. "What can I bring you?"

This one works for anyone, unless the bereaved has some sort of restraining order against you. Be prepared with suggestions if the person says "I don't know." Be prepared with non-food ideas if the person says "My fridge is full." Be prepared to get a gift card if the person says, "No, thank you," but gift-giving is still one of your love languages. Stick it in a card and drop it in the mail--they'll appreciate it later. Promise.

Caveat: Don't bring or give anything if you will be in a huff later if you didn't get a thank-you card. It's possible that the family will run out of steam for writing all the thank-you notes they intended, or will never conjure the energy in the first place. Give with no strings or expectations, or don't give at all.

3. "Can I go to the bank/supermarket/library/etc. for you?"

Yes. Yes, you can. Again, maybe this isn't something you'd say to someone you've only said hello to twice. If you don't know them well enough to know if they're too private to accept this offer, skip straight to a nice sympathy card with some kind words inside.

4. "Do you want to go to [fun thing you've always done together]?"

Give this one a little while before asking the first time, and keep in mind that the answer will likely be 'no' the first few times you ask. (Make sure you're spacing out your invites appropriately. This is also idiosyncratic--weekly? Monthly? Maybe next year? Pay attention to your friend's response to decide when to ask again.) Please, please don't give up on your friend. One day, the answer will be 'yes.'

5. Sharing a favourite memory or something you liked or appreciated about the departed person is nearly always welcome.

This means other kinds of stories, like "most embarrassing moment" or "something horrible he did to me when we were kids," are probably not welcome. Don't be the weird cousin who tells awkward stories at the wake.

Also, don't hold back on telling stories even if it's been weeks or months or years since the deceased passed. The idea of not wanting to remind the bereaved about his/her loss is silly; it's not like we're going to forget. If someone says they don't want to hear a memory right then, accept that in the moment, but that doesn't mean that they'll feel that way forever. In fact, there's a good chance they may reach out to you to hear that story once they're in a better frame of mind.

6. Go to the funeral.

This is not one of mine; it comes from a wise friend (who came to Chadwick's funeral, btw), and she is 100% correct. It's the best chance to show that you care. You don't even have to say anything. I'd be lying if I said I have instant recall of every person who was at Chadwick's funeral, but I do know that every person who stepped through the door made my heart swell a bit more. Especially those who travelled long distances and were a surprise. You never know how much your presence will bless someone.

7. "I care about you."

Just don't be creepy. If you don't know the person well enough to be non-creepy, there's always the standard-issue and perfectly acceptable:

8. "I'm so sorry to hear of your loss."

Cliched? Sure. Appreciated? Oh, yes. Even in those dark moments, we all know that there are no words. Better to say a few and let your presence speak for you than to try to "fix" it.

So if you've read all this and you're mad at me now or think I don't know what I'm talking about, congratulations! You are my target audience. Don't send me an angry comment; instead, re-read this through a few times and try to memorize the things in Part 2. Print it off and hang it up, if you need to. Take it along to the next funeral as a cheat sheet.

Above all, thank you for trying to lighten the load for someone else. That's my point for writing this again--to help you help your nearest and dearest through an awful time. Keep in mind that your words have power and you'll do just fine.

Strands of a Life

Legacy may be planting seeds in a garden you never get to see, but that doesn't tell us what to do with the gardens that are left to us. What we leave behind matters. But so does what we do with what's been left.

An old episode of Theatre People caught my ear recently, when Jeanine Tesori said, "A lot of the middle ages is taking the strands of your family's history and trying to decide what you're going to use in your own embroidery." I may not be quite to the middle ages just yet, but choosing my own strands is a thing I'm definitely thinking about this week.

Some literal family embroidery--my
grandmother's. This is a thread of hers that
is also in me. The fact that we shared this
was the sort of thing she might have
mentioned while she was still alive.

Some strands I left behind long before it even occurred to me that that's what I was doing, when straight out of high school I decided I needed to move away from my family and its history and see what I could embroider on a clean canvas. I brought them with me, though, with the needing things just so and the snark and the hanging onto things because I'll find a use for them later, plus wherever the writing thing came from.

My grandfather's nickname in his final years was "Mr. Wonderful," because whenever anyone asked him how he was, he would say, "Wonderful." He said that to me when I saw him the last time in the hospital--I walked in when he was alone, he grinned the same smile that my mother and uncles and brother all inherited, but not me--I said, "How are you, Grandpa?" and took his hand. He said, "Wonderful," before telling me he was in too much pain for me to hold his hand like that.

My Chadwick greeted the world with arms and heart open every day. I said of my uncle's passing earlier this week, "the world just got a little less kind and open-hearted." The pieces of my family's thread that are already in me are so deeply embedded that I don't even have to think about them, I can't even see them most of the time, but this open-heartedness and embrace of the world and everyone in it--those are threads I have to fight for. They aren't in me, because I have, at least somewhat from necessity, closed off my heart. I wonder what I'm missing, what kind of tapestry I could be making, if I could access those threads that I've left in the box for now. Who knows how my embroidery will change as the years go by?

I can't use all my family's thread. And I certainly don't want to. We have some ugly colours that I've purposely avoided, because that's not the kind of legacy I want to leave behind. And I've added some that are just me, which means leaving even more of everyone else in the box. 

What threads are you using?

And We'll All Go Together

Earlier this week, one of my posts from a year ago when I was looking for the right church turned up on my Facebook memories. I believe that was also the week I visited Echo Church for the third time and finally decided I was there to stay.

While my usual bike, Sharlie, has been to
Echo many times, last week was (IIRC)
Hugo's first time there. His mountain bike
tires are much more suited to the mud &
slush that were on Cincinnati streets
last weekend.

They're stuck with me now. They don't seem to mind, either because they're great actors or because I'm more fun to be around than I thought. I'm equally at peace either way. I wish I could say I learned something from the journey of visiting many places before I found my people, or that I now have the tools to find the right church in the future, should I ever be so mad as to change cities again. (This is city #5. While I have a short list of other places I'm willing to live, it gets shorter all the time and I'd rather not have to deploy it unless absolutely necessary.) (Unless there's a nonprofit in NYC that has a job to offer me right now and will pay me enough money that I can live a couple blocks from a subway line. I'd take that in a heartbeat.)

No, all I've learned is that God has many people in this city. And some of them are pretty great people who've opened their hearts and lives to what God wants to do through them. In our women's Bible study we've been reading through Mere Christianity, and this week got to some great things C.S. Lewis says about Christian community: "...united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body." 

That reminded me of a bit in Screwtape Letters (which I haven't read in years, so this is entirely from a memory that is only marginally reliable), when Screwtape tells Wormwood that for his client to be attending the same parish church week after week, seeing the foibles of his fellow parishioners up close until they grate on his nerves, is an effective way of keeping the client in hell's clutches. From what I've heard, the client in question in Screwtape is Lewis himself, so to put those passages together makes me think that Lewis hung in there through the aggravation he may have felt at his fellow community members and their more trying traits, to come out the other side treasuring them deeply as fellow believers. 

I don't know if I've ever gone through that process as thoroughly as I could. Goodness knows I'm fairly easily irritated, and never more so than in this era of everyone proudly displaying their quirks, delightful or otherwise, all over social media in a display of I don't even know what. (Guilty!) But to embrace a community is to embrace the whole of it, even at times when I may be completely flabbergasted by the person standing in front of me. As a person whose whole life is a bit outside of the ordinary, it's not like I don't bring my own foibles to the equation.

So after a year in this community, I'm happy, and indeed delighted, to have found them. And I know I still have some growing to do. So here's hoping for many years of all growing together.

Post title is a nod to the song, "Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go," which I wasn't planning to do until I wrote that last sentence. And after that I naturally couldn't think of anything else.

The Longest Wait

A few months ago, I finally took the plunge I've been thinking about doing for far too many years and sponsored a child through Compassion International. When you sign up to sponsor a kid, you can sort by age, gender, country, and probably a few other things, so I did the only thing I could think of: I sorted by length of wait and clicked on the kid who'd been waiting for a sponsor the longest.

First letter from Juan Diego.

And then when I went to the next page to finalize my transaction, the clever-clever web folks at Compassion had one final question for me: did I want to multiply my efforts and sponsor another kid from the same area? Of course I did, et voilà, I'm now the delighted sponsor of two little boys, Nelson and Juan Diego, from the same town. I don't know if they know each other yet. I hope they will get to be friends along the way as they're growing up together. They're both very young, so I'm going to be sponsoring them for a long time indeed. It's gonna be great.

First letter from Nelson.

Since I went for "longest wait," it was just by accident that I got Spanish-speaking children who I can write to in their native language, kinda. I hope I'm at least saving the Compassion translators a bit of time and energy. My sponsor packets arrived on my birthday, which was the coolest birthday gift I've received in years.

So, I blog and I'm a Compassion sponsor--does this make me a Compassion Blogger? Haha, no, although I'm thinking about joining that group, so stay tuned. It's not like I don't have enough words to do that--I can probably scrounge some up.

If Compassion International isn't for you--and I do recognize quite readily that joining forces with a Christian organization is not for everyone--please find some good work that you can support. Maybe it's your local food pantry. Maybe it's an advocacy group advancing a cause that's close to your heart. Maybe it's disaster relief, or education, or leaving a bag of groceries on the doorstep of a struggling family in your neighborhood. Whatever is the best way for you to make this planet a better place, find it and do it. Don't wait too long. Make today the day.

Let's leave the world better than we found it.

Change Comes in Pieces

I wrote this post in 2012 for the alumni site of Adventures in Missions (AIM), the short-term missions program for young adults that I participated in straight out of high school. AIM gave me incredible experiences and lifelong friends. Alas, the alumni site did not give me a storage place for my words. This piece came up in my Facebook memories a few days ago, but when I clicked through to re-read, I got an error message and then remembered that the alumni site is no more. 

Since I don't want a perfectly good 700 words to go to waste, I'm reposting it with a few tweaks but no updates that bring us to present day. So here's a bit of time travelling back to Austin during London 2012.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve watched 14 different sports. Right now, I’m flipping between three channels on my TV and two live feeds on my computer, and I have TV Guide, NBC Olympics, and London 2012 windows also open so I won’t miss anything. You might say I’m a fan.

My earliest Olympic memory is of fellow (eventually) Longhorn Mary-Lou Retton in ’84, but it wasn’t until ’88 that I understood that these mysterious Olympics were something special. And like everybody else, I couldn’t have been more into ’92. The Dream Team. The Unified Team. Kristi Yamaguchi and Viktor Petrenko. Dan and Dave. Janet Evans. Kim Zmeskal. It was an amazing year.

And then it got better, I thought—the IOC separated the Winter and Summer Games into different years, so we had an oh-so-short wait before the next Winter Games. I was delighted at first, but the closing ceremonies had more of a sense of finality than usual, because there were no forthcoming Summer Games. A two-year gap didn’t seem so short any longer.

In some ways, the Olympics are better than ever because each set of Games gets its own year, without the world’s attention being divided between the two. But the price for making both versions more special was that The Olympics as a whole have lost some of their mystery. The rarity and sense of occasion is diminished when the Olympic rings never vanish from Coke cans and McDonald’s wrappers. A little bit of the excitement and anticipation is lost, because it’s always an Olympic year.

But why should my post-AIM life make me think of the Olympics? In many ways, my time in Scotland was no different from anyone else’s field time: I learned. I grew. My personal horizons broadened. More importantly, my spiritual life expanded as the bounds I had placed on what God could do were dissolved again and again. But my heart broke into pieces.

There’s a gorgeous story about Dr. David Livingston, one of the pioneers of western missionaries to Africa. His compatriots in Scotland wanted to give his body a proper burial in the country of his birth, but the African people he had devoted his life to were not wild about the idea. Their ultimate solution was to send Dr. Livingston’s body back, but keep his heart. Why? “His heart belongs in Africa,” they said.

Yes. This. Exactly.

As short-term missionaries, we left our hearts behind when we came home. But I’ve found that two years of my life wasn’t sufficient for Glasgow to have all of my heart. There’s a piece of my heart at Spring Mill Bible Camp, my teenage safe haven. Bits of my heart live in Denver City, where I spent so much time as an AIM student and assistant, and at South Plains Church of Christ, where Chadwick and I were members for 8 years. Slivers of me sit at South Plains College and the University of Texas. You’ll find pieces of my heart with Chadwick at our little apartment on the edge of Austin and at workplaces like BikeTexas and the Wound Care Center. Even more bits of my heart are scattered across the planet right now, attached to people I love who have touched my life and left me as a better person. A better follower of Jesus. Better able to love the next person I meet.

Maybe that’s why, even as a mere observer, I feel such an affinity with the Olympic Games: not just because of the passion and dedication of the athletes, not just because of the excitement and joy and emotion of giving one’s whole self to a single moment. It’s because despite the storms, through some horribly wrong days and because of wonderfully right ones, and in contact with many hearts and minds, the Games change, and grow, and keep striving to be better.

Don’t be afraid of scattering your heart. Don’t shy away from leaving pieces of yourself behind. It hurts when your heart breaks, but that pain is not worth comparing to the glory that awaits us at the time when we will again be made whole.

Being Seen

A few weeks ago, during a Sunday morning sermon about the Samaritan woman at the well, I commented on Twitter that I'd once started a fight in a Bible class over this passage. Some folks asked to hear more, so here it is.

I'm going to call her Edna, which is not even close to her real name. Edna, God bless her, was an elderly woman of boundless, sometimes misdirected, energy; strong opinions and a stronger need to express them at all times (a trait she and I share, it seems); and the remarkable ability to cause annoyance in even the most saintly of her fellow churchgoers. Usually, when she spoke, people would nod and then change the subject so as not to get swept up into an unwanted conversation. (Which is a real shame, by the way, and something I absolutely regret having participated in.)

Enter me, at home on a visit, age 22. Fresh off a couple years of short-term mission work that had been preceded by a year at Bible school. Either out of kindness or a misunderstanding of the amount of Bible knowledge one is able to pick up in three short years, the Bible class teacher that day had sought me out before class to encourage to feel free to jump in to the discussion and share my thoughts.

Do you know what happens when you Google "Jacob's
Well"? You get a bunch of pics of the swimmin hole
in Wimberley, Texas. This pic is just a well. Source:
Dora Lupeanu on freeimages.com.

So here comes the simple question, "Why did Jesus have to go through Samaria in the first place?" Edna says, "He was afraid of the Pharisees and went through Samaria so they wouldn't follow him there." (The Jews of the time did not go through Samaria as a general rule--they were definitely not friends.)

Did I even stop to think before words came flying out of my mouth? I did not, and said something like, "Jesus was afraid of the Pharisees? Where did you get that idea?" Edna insisted that of course Jesus was afraid, because he had to be afraid sometimes, but I wasn't having any and told her that was ridiculous--surely the guy who argued with Pharisees in the temple every day, the guy who had turned and walked away from the mob who tried to throw him off the cliff, the guy who knew what his ultimate destiny would be--that guy did not go hide in Samaria because he was scared.

Meanwhile, my dad is sitting next to me grinning very much like a Cheshire cat--I'm pretty sure this was the moment for him when all that time & effort put into keeping me alive until adulthood suddenly bore fruit--and the Bible class teacher changed the subject. (He and his family are wonderful people, by the way, and I'm far from being the only young person he encouraged to find their feet with Biblical things by speaking up in his class. It's still a highlight of any visit home for me to spend a few minutes chatting with him.)

Edna spent the rest of the class writing me a long note about why I was wrong. Neither of us changed the other's mind that day, and indeed I still firmly believe that Jesus went through Samaria because here were people, and especially this wounded woman, who needed to hear his message of hope. He wasn't acting out of fear, but rather was doing exactly what he came here to do. I would just say so much more kindly now, if Edna were still on this earth to hear me say it.

And perhaps that's the real thing I learned that day and am still desperately trying to apply to my own life. This journey that we're on is full of twists and turns and sometimes the road leads to unexpected people and places. Perhaps the best gift we have for our fellow humans is to take a moment to hear one another's stories, to offer a moment of hope and kindness, to look one another in the eyes and say, "I see you. You are real. You matter."

Which is exactly what Jesus did for the woman at the well. And although I didn't know it at the time, it's exactly what Edna and the others in the room that day were doing for me.

8 Years, 4 Cities, 9000 Miles

Facebook was kind enough to tell me that yesterday was my 8th anniversary... with my bicycle. Yes, Sharlie (short for Charlotte; she's named after Charlotte Brontë) entered my life on August 1, 2009, and we've been BFFs ever since. This is my first proper bike of my entire life--up until that day, I'd only owned department store specials. Not really the best thing for someone who rides as much as I do, which is probably why I've never owned any other bike as long as Sharlie.

She's a lot less shiny now. Also, it looks like it was rainy
in Lubbock on the day she came home, so clearly she's a
good-luck charm.

Mind you, she objects to my characterization of the relationship (yes, my bicycle has a Twitter account):

Oh, sweetie. That's cute. Have I never explained to you that it's the other way around? https://t.co/zGREWoDEge

— Sharlie the Bike (@SharlieBike) August 1, 2017

Chadwick and I went to two different bike shops before I finally settled on Sharlie being the one. (He was pushing me toward the equivalent Trek model. I held firm on wanting a Giant.) I asked the gent in the shop to air up her tires so I could ride her home, mostly because there was no way we were fitting her in our tiny car, but also because I couldn't wait another minute for our first ride together. Also, Chadwick was convinced that hopping on Sharlie would magically make me faster and he wanted to see just how quick the ride home would be. She has some magical qualities, to be sure, but that hasn't been one of them so far. (He thought that it was, though. That day and every day after.)

We've ridden over 9000 miles together, and barring any dangerous/careless/just plain dumb drivers taking either of us out, we plan to carry on for another 9000.

She likes Cincinnati so far, although we both agree that
the bike parking around here leaves a great deal to be desired.

Making "For Now" Longer

I'm not sure where this story begins.

It ends with a pair of pillows that I restuffed earlier this week because they were sad and droopy. I've had them tucked away awaiting restuffing and a bit of mending for a while, but fixing a couple pillows has never been a top priority.

Last week I picked up new shirts for work at a thrift store (an action that is not super-compatible with my Project 333 Challenge, by the way) and was exploring the craft section when I saw a practically brand-new bag of fiberfill. "I can use that!" my brain shouted, so the bag came home with me and has now been emptied into my two pillows. Because sometimes the spark needed to finally do something lands in the right place at the right time.

Back where they belong. Slightly wonky, because of the
resewing process. But "slightly wonky" is very like
my Chadwick, so no worries there.

You see, I've had these pillows since the first year I was married, and Chadwick loved them and used them for so much lounging on the couch that the inadequate bit of stuffing I had managed to scrounge up on our painfully limited budget back then was soon flattened. We didn't get rid of them, though, because they had sentimental value and anyway, all they needed was a bit of fiberfill, and surely we wouldn't be living on a craft-free budget forever, and as with so many things that are relegated to the back burner the pillows stayed there for years, kicking around in our bedroom but never seen in public.

Chadwick loved the pillows so much because he had loved them in their previous life as his favourite t-shirt and shorts, and one day he came home to find a pair of pillows sitting on the couch that looked suspiciously like some things that used to be in his closet. (I gave him fair warning first, but he didn't take me seriously because he thought I didn't know how to make clothes into pillows. He was mistaken.) I thought he might be a bit sad, but instead he was delighted--he'd only been hanging on to that shirt and shorts because he was reluctant to throw them away and now he didn't have to. And there was much rejoicing in Chez Wilcox.

Because they had needed to be thrown out, quite desperately. You know the current trend for bare shoulder tops? That's more or less what the shirt had turned into, because it had so many holes, and I fully expected that one day Chadwick would put it on and the collar would stay round his neck while the rest of it just kept on going until it hit the floor. He had agreed not to wear it in public, at least, but then he kept forgetting because it was still in his closet and available. The shorts had much the same problem. I had mended those more than once just in the few short months we had been married, but they had reached the point that they were more patch than original in a fairly vital place.

He had been a bit wary, for my first birthday of our marriage, of buying me the sewing machine that I'd asked for--partly because it was way not in our budget, and partly because he didn't want to be the husband who bought his wife an appliance as a gift. But I insisted that I couldn't look after our belongings properly if we were relying on my patience and mental fortitude for hand sewing, so off to Sears we went and bought the machine I'm still using 15 years later. Once he realized its usefulness for keeping his clothes in circulation much longer than he could have done it himself, he agreed that it was probably the best birthday gift he'd ever given anyone.

Chadwick in the shirt before it began disintegrating. Based
on the boxes on the countertop behind us, I'm guessing this
was probably the first week we were married. That was
such a crappy apartment, but it was ours.
Also, dang, we looked good!

He was crazy-proud of the fact that his wife could sew. The first time I mended his clothes, he sat back in shock and watched me fix rips he had thought were unrepairable, only to put whatever it was back on and see he didn't have to throw it out after all. He was still in college at the time, and rumor has it that he was like a little kid at show and tell when he wore newly-mended clothes to class. I'm pretty sure this is why married students at Christian universities have a reputation for being slightly off-balance, y'all. They brag about things like living on a tight budget with the help of a needle and thread.

So the pillows are back on my sofa where they belong, and I can still feel Chadwick's delight hovering around them. The fabric is at least 20 years old and won't last forever, but thanks to a chance find at a thrift store and a faithful sewing machine, I at least have them for now.

Word: Checking In on Creation

The last Sunday of June seems like as good a time as any to check in on my word for 2017, Creation. (Some of the ladies at church can remember each other's words and cheer for accomplishments in their word of the year. I only remember mine because it's on my ribbon board and I can see it from here. Maybe my word should have been "memory.")

These are Charles Rennie Mackintosh font & roses.
Because when in doubt, use someone else's creation, I guess?

My word was inspired in part by 2 Corinthians 5:17 and in part by Rent, which is par for the course here in Su-Land, but of course all my creating thus far this year has had very little to do with either thing. Some creation in my 2017 thus far:

• Since I'm likely to be in this apartment for at least another year after my current lease runs out, I'm making it a living space I can feel comfortable in and happy to come home to
• More writing on my perennial friend, Sybil, who may never ever be finished but at least is my constant companion
• Building a new community, as best as I can, in Cincinnati (I honestly have no idea how humans make friends. I mostly just hang around people and try out a few topics of conversation until they either talk to me or run away. Is that what everyone does?)
• Tackling a massive knitting project with a hard deadline. I should be working on that right now
• Planning, with considerable enthusiasm, my next four crafty projects. Because creation begets creation
• 131 blog posts (out of 211 days of the year thus far), which is more than I've managed in some entire years. 
• Embracing that some of my blog posts are bound to suck, and taking the duds as a learning experience to make all my writing better
• Finding ways to keep all the new information I'm learning at work in order (every time a coworker asks me for information, I pull up the spreadsheet where I keep said information, which inevitably elicits a "Wow, you are so organized!" from the coworker. To be clear: I am so very not)
• Reluctantly spending less energy on the time-sucking pits that I love (Twitter and Pinterest) and less time on the sucky pit that has become a habit (Facebook) to devote more of my time and energy to things that need that kind of attention if I'm going to get them done

I'm not sure I would count all these things as creation, any other year, but I'm counting them now as I go through my days looking for opportunities to create and attempting to see the everyday with fresh eyes.

What are you creating today? Alternatively: what's something you're trying this year, and how is it going?

Consistency Is Its Own Reward (but medals are nice, too)

In case anyone was wondering: training in Cincinnati and then racing in Indianapolis is a great strategy. I should do that again.

I got a couple short runs in this week, which I don't usually do after races more than 15K in length, so I guess my legs are fine. Probably. I'm not as well acquainted with my running muscles as I once was, and since that's something I should probably change, I have my running calendar laid out from now until the end of the year. Nothing major or dramatic, just rebuilding some consistency into my life that's been sorely lacking since I stopped being a member of my local running club.

Aside: y'all, never underestimate the power of other people in your life. As encouragers, as accountability partners, as friends who will mock you if you let things slide--whatever. Fill your life with those folks and don't let them go. And always be willing to be that person in someone else's life. Humans need other humans. Runners--some of us, anyway--need other runners.

I still don't have any more 2017 races on my calendar, although I'm debating the merits of Cincinnati's trail series, if for no other reason that it will be kinda like being in the running club again. Downside: getting anywhere that's more than a couple miles away without a car. Even low-cost races get expensive in a hurry if I have to get a Zipcar every time. So I'm pondering.

Today is a new day. Let's go.

Updated medal display. (Because what else am I going to do with them?)
The far right are Chadwick's finisher medals--the ones I could find, anyway.
Red, white, & blue ribbons to the left of those are our age-group medals.
The rest are my finisher medals. 

A Year in a Life

Y'all. Look what the 5th Avenue Theatre posted for my birthday!



I didn't even get out of bed this morning before I watched it. So fantastic. Bea Corley looks to be a brilliant Mary Lennox. Seattle friends, go see this NOW because it's your last chance!

Anyway. This isn't supposed to be a Secret Garden post. So the day I've been not-looking-foward-to for two years has arrived... I've reached the age that Chadwick got to but never got past.  On my 36th birthday, which was the last we would spend together, he and I talked about the weird feeling I had about arriving, healthy and whole and with every expectation of seeing 37, at the age at which my beloved uncle had died. And then it was less than a year before Chadwick was gone, too, despite his expectations (and indeed, eagerness--he was a bit of an odd one, my Chadwick) of seeing 40. I suppose you could say the death rate is still going strong at 100%.

Thanks, Google.

So I don't know how I feel about it today. My coworker whose office I share (even after three months, I still think of it as her office) also just not-celebrated a birthday, and we've talked a bit the the past week about neither of us really feeling the spirit of getting another year older. I feel, as I always do on this day, the weight of the legacy of sharing my birthday with a grandfather I can't remember (he would have been 85), the joy of a baby cousin who I don't see nearly often enough who now shares this birthday, too (I've lost track of how old she is), and a special kinship with a couple other beloved birthday buddies. (Okay, so one of them is Dulé Hill, who technically isn't "beloved" since he's a complete stranger I just admire when I see his work on TV, but the other one is a high school classmate who welcomed me back to Greenfield last summer with literal open arms and is beloved enough for both herself and a random celebrity, with some left over.)

That paragraph kind of got away from me a bit. I'm leaving it.

But there's an extra weight this year, that at some point in the next few months I'm likely going to cross what was Chadwick's finish line and have to keep going. He woke up in the arms of Jesus before he could get to the magical milestone he was so excited about, the one he was planning to greet like an old friend instead of as a drugery, the one he was already celebrating instead of dreading. And if God grants me another year on this planet to live and love and laugh and grow and be--the least I can do, the very least I can do is greet this year and the next great adventure with the same lightness in my heart.

Even if there are tears today. (There already are. It's ridiculous.) Even if I feel this hole in my heart so keenly as I face another day without him by my side. Even if the road looks long and dark and I'd rather just lay on the ground than carry on. He would not want me to waste a perfectly good year on angst--he'd want me to grab this life with both hands and stretch it in every way I can to make sure I didn't miss any of it. That is the legacy he's left with me. That is a thing that I can do.

Post title was not an intentional reference to "Seasons of Love," but since that works out so nicely, here you go. Maybe I'll make that my theme song for 39. That one or "No Day But Today," which also works well for birthdays. Here on in, I shoot without a script.

Zoom!

That's the sound I'm going to make when I'm running on the Speedway on Saturday. Of course, I'll have to say it aloud, because my running is less "zoom" and more "plod," but whatever. Going slower just means I have more time to line up to high-five Meb, amirite?

I'm just gonna go get another set of these Saturday.

Seriously. If I manage to get a Meb-five, I don't even care if I break my leg on the next turn and have to be carried back via the nearest hospital. That's really all I'm going for.

So! Less than a week to go until my second running of the Indy Mini. As I did for El Paso, I'm guessing my final 12-mile training run time is likely to be close to my race day finishing time. I was a bit slower than that in El Paso, but here's the thing about Indianapolis--it's flatter than the flattest of pancakes. Unlike everywhere I look in Cincinnati, the closest thing the Indy Mini has to a hill is the ramp up to the Speedway. Where Meb will be. I think I got this.

This will be my 61st race and my 9th half marathon. There's nothing particularly significant about those numbers (except, hey! That's where all my money goes), but since I went to the trouble to look them up, I decided to share. You know what's going to be sad about this race? No one following me on a bike. So... anybody wanna come be my portable cheering section? It's flat!

Let's do this, Indy.

T is for Tyler #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

The Tyler Davidson Fountain, despite having a gent's name, is actually a lady, also called The Genius of Water. I will say this for Cincinnati: they're very good at giving credit where credit is due for the city's growth and prosperity. First to the pigs, now to the river.

The lights on the fountain change colour a bit. We don't have nine of them.

The Tyler Davidson Fountain is in the middle of the appropriately named Fountain Square, which (if the frequency with which people mention it is any indication) is certainly in the top five of most beloved spots in the city. The fountain was in the opening credits of WKRP in Cincinnati (I remember the show, but I'm pretty sure I remember it in reruns. Also, I just watched the title sequence for the first time in about 30 years and the city hasn't changed a lot).

On one of our three snowy days
last winter. I'm not complaining:
that's exactly the right number
of snowy days.

The fountain has been moved around a bit since her dedication in 1871, and has been in her current location since 2006. She was placed on the National Register in 1979. The water is switched on every spring (after being off for the winter months) in time for the Reds' first home game.

Also on Fountain Square: some nice landscaping, an enormous Christmas tree at Christmastime, an ice skating rink for a few months, a stage the rest of the time, tables and chairs, big signs with all the rules for the plaza. And an alleged bike rack. Seriously, bike parking is listed as an amenity on the Fountain Square website, and they are mistaken.

I think you misspelled "disgrace" on that website, y'all.

But at least there's a Red Bike station just off the square, so all is not lost.

On a chilly but well-lit evening last weekend.

R is for Reds #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

I very nearly skipped right over R and went straight to S, because even on my best days the alphabet and I aren't really on speaking terms, and today... is not one of my best days. So. Here we R.

Today's post is, in fact, an homage to person you should either thank or blame, depending on how you feel about me living in Cincinnati. For all the people who ask, "How did you end up in here?"--well, I almost didn't, but at some point my friend Bill said, "Have you thought about Cincinnati?" and went on to tell me about all the stuff Cincy has that I enjoy, like a whole bunch of theatre and a growing bike culture. And while it's gratifying to have friends who remember things that I like, I think it's even more true that Bill knows and loves Cincinnati well enough to know that a wide range of people and personalities can find a home here.

So! That being the case, and since Bill is a huge Reds fan, this post is for him. For me, well, I literally am surprised anew every time I see their logo, y'all. Can't remember what it looks like from one day to the next. Barely even remember what sport they play, most days. But I made my way down to the riverfront earlier this week on a game night, not on purpose, and when I texted a couple of the pics to Bill he said, "I'm watching it right now!" (I was not, but I was downtown long enough to hear the fireworks go off when something good happened. Bill said it was probably a grand slam. I had to think for a second to remember we weren't talking about tennis.)

Front door. A little girl in full-on Reds gear gave me a weird look
as she passed me, possibly because I was standing on the Reds' doorstep
wearing a Wizard of Oz t-shirt. 

I did just enough research to know that the Reds are the oldest franchise in Major League Baseball, and also that I probably should have been paying closer attention on Opening Day. Y'all... I keep finding stuff out a couple weeks too late. This has to be some sort of malady that can surely be cured with... I don't know, a better calendar? Friends who will just presume I don't know anything? Google alerts?

Round the back. Those mini-murals on the wall are to do with the
Flying Pig Marathon. They're great, but nothing to do with this post.

The local bikeshare system is called Red Bikes, but unlike the Pacers Bikeshare system up the road in Indianapolis, the Red Bikes don't seem to have anything to do with the baseball team. They're just red. Why, I don't know, because it seems like a fairly critical missed opportunity.

This dude has a plaque with his name on it, which I immediately forgot.
He's probably tired of holding that bat up.

I'm sure if I live here long enough, I'll go to a game eventually. Preferably with someone who will tell me what's going on, since this isn't tennis and that's pretty much the full extent of my baseball knowledge.

Wait, they sing? Y'all may be speaking my language
after all. Do they also build barricades?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is in honor of somebody.
Who? No idea.

There you have it--my thank-you post for the person who told me Cincinnati was worth looking into. Turns out he was right.

Springing

As spring progresses, I grow ever more convinced that my seeing The Secret Garden for the first time before my first spring in the Midwest as an adult was by divine intervention.

Every tulip I've seen has been so bright and amazing that
it's almost hard to believe they're real. 

I don't think of God as a giant puppetmaster pulling strings and controlling day-to-day life, though, which I suppose means that I don't really believe that thing I just wrote. But still, it was a remarkable confluence of circumstances which has led to me five months later strolling through this, my favourite of seasons, singing "And you'll be here to see it." (There's just one verse of the song in the first minute of that video, although the whole thing is worth watching.)

For here indeed I am. After a frustrating 2016 filled with false starts, I've landed on my feet with a job I enjoy and coworkers who fill me with delight, plus a church home that's ditto with bells on, and getting out of bed most days is not as hard as it once was. And while my heart may still belong to Austin, I do stop to look around every day and marvel at all this green. In many ways, every day for me is like Dorothy walking out of her house into Oz. (But before the whole shoe incident with Elphaba.)

Not every tree is blooming yet, but the ones that are--I can
barely take my eyes off them.

I went for a nice long walk before church this morning.
Great way to start a Sunday in a good frame of mind to
go tell God that he's pretty cool.

I don't need summer to get here in a hurry. In fact, I need it to not. I need plenty of mornings of singing "Winter's on the Wing" on my walk to work and loving every second of it. This is a season of rebirth and it's helping to heal the holes in my heart.

What is spring doing for you?

Tick Tock

I'm in Indiana this weekend visiting my grandma. (Our usual hilarity is likely to ensue, if you're among her many Twitter fans.) Why? Because not only do I enjoy her company, but also because it makes her happy, and the time left to make her happy is short.

After my dad's mother passed away two years ago, one of my cousins wrote a beautiful Facebook post about being out of time--our mutual grandmother was her last living grandparent--and how precious hours and minutes become when there aren't that many left. This was one broken heart beautifully expressing what we were all feeling but hadn't yet articulated--time was up, and all we are left with are the memories we collected over a lifetime. It's not enough. It never is. (This happened back before the arrival of the Hamilton album and "running out of time" becoming a meme in its own right.) 

Source.

Of course we know in our heads that we're all running out of time, always, with our nearest and dearest as well as ourselves. We're not guaranteed any more time, no matter how much we try to stave off those thoughts with good intentions and grand plans to do better next time. And honestly, why would anyone truly want to live each minute like it could be the last one? I'm not sure how our human brains would hold up under that kind of stress. (Not to mention that no laundry or dishes would ever get washed again.) At the end of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, having seen how short and precious life is, Emily says, "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you!" Mr. Wilder's insight burns with the intensity of a Bond villain's laser on the thing we're trying so hard not to think about--life is precious and fleeting, and it's too much to grasp in one go.

Now I'm the one with only one remaining grandparent. I still have some time, as quickly as it may be running out. It's not enough--it will never be enough--but it's all we have. When our last minute together arrives, I choose to be left with memories of the times I made grandma happy instead of empty regret. 

What are you running out of time for?