Time
“We
spend too much time cursing time—time waits for no man, time will
tell, oh, the ravages of time, time flies! We don't think about the
gift of time. Time gives us the chance to make mistakes and correct
them, to regenerate, to grow. Time gives us the chance to forgive, to
restore, to do better than we have ever done in the past. Time gives
us the chance to be sorry when we fail and the chance to discover in
ourselves a new heart.”
Anne
Rice (The Wolves of Midwinter)
One
of my grandfathers lived to the age of ninety-one. He was good
grandfather to me—affectionate with his words and funny—but he'd
treated my grandmother, and after her death, my mother, badly. He was
demanding, and not always kind in the way he requested assistance. To
be honest with you, he was mean as a snake to the women who tried to
serve his needs. He once threw a plate of food at my mother because
she had brought something other than what he'd requested. She watched
it whiz past her head, and smash on the wall behind her, making a
terrible mess. Without saying a word, she turned and walked out,
leaving him to clean it up.
I
always thought God allowed my grandfather to live ninety-one long
years to give him time to clean up his act—to grow kinder and less
bombastic. He didn't. In his final years, at a nursing home he had
chosen for himself, he stole a female resident's bird feeder, and put
it outside his own window, he shoved an old woman's wheelchair so
hard she face-planted into a wall, and he slugged his roommate—which
got him summarily thrown out of said nursing home. He was, as we say
down here, “a piece of work” right up to the end. I expect he'll
get to do another round or two here in the earth-school.
Time
is not the enemy. Long life gives us opportunities to make a
difference in this world, to correct the mistakes we make, and to
restore broken relationships. It gives us a chance to grow gentle. We
surely don't want to end up like my grandpa.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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