Pondering the Elixir of Living

This “While It Is Day” living is not always easy, but I consider it a far better alternative than not having  any “While It Is Day” time at all!  Living is not easy when we are young, trying to find our way into an adult world.  Living is not easy as we attempt to choose our vocations.  Living is not easy being a parent.  Living just isn’t easy at any time or stage of life, and I don’t think it was ever meant to be easy.  Even Jesus indicated that living is not easy, and that this “difficult” living is standard fare for everybody: “Come to me,  all whose work is hard and whose load is heavy; and I will give you relief.”

Being alive doesn’t get any easier with retirement.  It is still a hard and often difficult road, but, again, better than the alternative. Being alive doesn’t get any better with old age either.  None of us need Scott Peck to tell us that “Life is difficult.” We already know  this in our own experience.  Life is not easy, 

Last July Cher and I enjoyed a wonderful journey to England to witness our granddaughter’s second wedding (to the same guy she married here in the States in October 2017).  My brother and his wife joined us.  What fun we had in Yorkshire and what joy we knew as we shared precious moments with Katie and Liam.  From England we journeyed on to St. Petersburg and  Copenhagen via a cruise on the Baltic Sea.  An unforgettable trip!  

In August, however, Cher suffered a T.I.A. or what is commonly known as a mini-stroke.  There had been no warning signs, no clues.  It came as total surprise.  Fortunately there were no ill-effects and she began taking the various preventative medicines that many “older people” know all about (including me!).  Unfortunately none of these “meds” helped much with the intense pain she was experiencing with her arthritic knee.  Surgery seemed the only option.  Surgery occurred in December (followed by complications, of course!).  For the past three months she has worked hard in physical therapy sessions (the last one is tomorrow) to get her “new” knee functioning properly.  It hasn’t been easy, but then, living isn’t easy.  Not for Cher, not for you, not for me, not for any of us.

A new tomorrow comes now as the medications do what they are meant to do and the new knee, after much hard work, is functioning as it should.  So we shall dance into tomorrow while it is day—and we’ll do it with enthusiasm, and with as much joy as we can muster, because while life isn’t easy, it is known to be of brief duration.  Live as much as you can, while you can, and as fully as you can—“While It Is Day.”