Time in a Bottle

Early in the morning, this day, three years ago, my Dad shuffled off this mortal coil, to borrow from Shakespeare.

Everything was in order, just as he would have liked it. His friend and ours, Char, had come over the previous afternoon. Char had taken over the teaching of Dad's Wednesday Bible study when it got to be too much for him, and she would come over every Thursday and go over the lesson with him and they would have an often lively discussion. This particular Thursday, Dad had had a good lunch and their conversation was interspersed with gentle laughter and the flipping of pages to certain passages of the Bible.

As she prepared to leave Char got up, walked over to Dad and said, "May I pray for you, Allan?"

At the end of her prayer she rested her hand on his shoulder and murmured the old words:

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

The Lord make His face to shine upon you

and be gracious unto you, 

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace. 

.

Then she bent over and placed a kiss on his forehead - "... see you when I get back from my trip..." and she was gone. 

BA returned from work and we had tea and a "rose cookie toast" - a highly prized treat from Deb's Christmas kitchen.

I was getting ready to leave when suddenly a car drove up - Deb herself, who had decided to come down one night early instead of the Friday morning as originally planned.

The sun started to slip away and I had to go; the drive back to the ranch terrified me, more so when it was icy and dark.

On the way was a beautiful sunset. I stopped to take a picture, as I often did, to show Dad the next day.

Of course, that didn't happen. Instead, I received the phone call from Deb.

On the desolate drive to Dad's house, I had rarely felt so alone. As I approached the Tolman River I sort of asked God if they were together, if they had found each other. A few moments later, on a precipitous part of the highway I looked up, and there was this sight:

Startled, I stopped in the middle of the lane, turned off the engine and watched them for approximately ten minutes. No cars came for that entire time. 

They moved only to look at each other a couple of times; the rest of the time, they stared straight at me.

Then finally, when I could breathe again, they turned in unison and, looking at each other, slowly disappeared over the hill.

When I got to Dad's home the girls told me that his body was lying on his bed, just as they had found him.

When I walked up to his hospital bed, he looked completely at peace. He had removed the nasal prongs that delivered his oxygen, kicked off his blanket, and appeared to be stepping joyfully out of this life into the next.

Dad had used his time on earth wisely and to the best of his ability, and so he could leave without regret and without second-guessing.

"Nothing to prove; nothing to lose," as he used to say.

He was free.

Untrammeled.

The thought of using time wisely, of time slipping away at a seemingly accelerated rate each year I add to my life, has been weighing heavy on my mind for the last couple of months. One of my literary heroes asks the question:

The first Sunday of January this year, The Church at Endiang had a special New Year's service where - following in Dad's footsteps - we each chose a promise for our year. 

It had come to me at around Christmas time while I was pondering our group that meets on the first and third Sunday evenings of the month how different we are from each other, what a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences we bring to our gathering. What do we really have in common? 

What all of us have in common is time. All things being equal, we will all have the same amount of weeks in the upcoming year, the same amount of days. 

Of course, the inevitable caveat: the scripture reminds us that "our times are in [God's] hands," that there are cases where lives run their course before we are ready to say goodbye. 

The nightly news gives credence ... 

Beloved friends are diagnosed, with the addendum "inoperable" ...

Other treasured friends miraculously complete their "18 months to two years countdown" and shakily emerge on the other side with no timeline, no expectations, just gratitude for 17 bonus days and counting ...

One mother mentioned to me that her tiny daughter had commented no one would shoot her because she was pretty. Even in her innocence she is aware on some level that time can be upended.

Madison Rose, 12 minutes.

Baby L, born too early to be able to sustain life. Baby A, fighting for more time, for a chance.

Virgil. George. Maynard. Three brothers, each in their prime.

Pulmonary fibrosis, 84 years old.

Multiple myeloma, 70 years old.

Multiple myeloma, 48 years old.

We can all add our heartbreaks to the list.

Time is so fragile, so precious. 

So as I was contemplating our new year's service I thought that maybe we could mark the progress of 2020 with a simple exercise: I gathered glass bottles and jars in a variety of shapes and sizes and placed 52 little sparkling pebbles in every jar, the containers representing us and each pebble representing a week in the year ahead of us. I suggested that when we went home, we find an empty container and each week we transfer one pebble from the original container to our second container. We can keep an informal track of the passage of time.

I just moved my third pebble over. 

It's sobering and it's also a challenge. It's causing me to reflect on life, on values, on expectations. It's causing me to slow down and also to speed up. I've had a couple of awful days where I've wondered what is the point. And then a couple more days of clearly seeing what the point is.

I think my Dad might have liked this exercise.

A song from a CD my sister gave me has been playing in my head a lot for the past two days: Andrae Crouch's song from the 70s, "It won't be long". In two minutes he sums up what I'm feeling:

As I drove on the Snake Trail from Hanna to Endiang yesterday evening, the sunset was gorgeous. I was wishing I could show the picture to Dad the next day.

Of course, that didn't happen.

But somehow, I feel he knows ...