Time: A Matter of Life and Death

Time is not flippant in it's measure. Often it's stinginess feels like a curse. Other moments, I feel lavished and blessed by an extra measure of it's presence. The latter is the case today. With school having started back, I am suddenly finding pockets of it here and there. For instance, this morning there is time for drinking coffee in bed and blogging while Queen LaTica snuggles up against me. It is valued, I can assure you. In fact, in a valiant effort to conserve, I made sure to tuck in underneath the covers, just in case I should get sleepy. If that were to occur, I would only be responsible in that particular moment of time for simply closing my eyes. In doing so, there would be no wasted minutes in transition between blogging and napping. I consider this to be "using time wisely".

That being said, time has been both friend and foe to me this summer and I have thought extensively about it, particularly in reference to my mom's death.

When she was first taken to the hospital, I was thankful for time. Thankful that it was available for whispering to her some important things that were lingering inside of me. Things that were on the to do list for the next visit to the nursing home. Things that were more than likely just for me, but necessary just the same.

Then time began to linger like a once welcomed guest who outstays the extent of your hospitality to the point of relational demise. I was no longer grateful for it. I wanted it to hurry. I wanted it to pass. It was slowly becoming my enemy. My gratefulness turned into resentment. Days turned into weeks and time oozed the hours together in confusion. Angst began to settle in. I hated time. It's stoic constitution. It's refusal to yield to my pain. It's generous presence, turning on me and settling in like a splinter, mocking me with it's control. No negotiation.

Only waiting.
Waiting on time to pass in a stale hospital room the size of a hotel bathroom became the norm. I spent most of that time perched on a plasticky, mauve-colored love seat that with the jerking of an arm-rest, turned miraculously into a bed. This came in handy when exhaustion pulverized me. Waiting. Staring. Thinking. Praying. I watched the clock hands drag around with the speed of expired molasses. I watched the employees with the food cart methodically circle past our room day after day. Meal after meal. The ice cream truck on a sweltering day comes to mind. I imagine it rolling past; it's melodic tunes screaming over a loud speaker to an audience of sweaty, salivating kids without a dollar to their name. We were like those kids. It rolled on.

But one particular day, it stopped directly in front of my mom's room, her door framing it like a snapshot. It is an image I will never forget. Stacks of covered dishes full of warm lunch, piled precariously atop that stainless steel version of the ice cream truck. It stared me down from the hallway. I laughed at the irony as tears ran down my cheeks. I took a picture, then I shut the door.

It's been 2 months now since my mom's spirit departed from this earth. She left us in the presence of time. Time of death? 11:58pm. And suffice it to say that it was once again back on my side. It might surprise you to learn however, that even though we have reconciled, I remain faithfully unsatisfied with time's pace. It feels as though it is speeding up as I type and here I sit wishing a few moments back with the "old molasses". Funny how that works...

In the last couple of months, I have come to know this: Time will not be manipulated. It moves forward, marching with commitment. And although it seems to pause for death, it keeps it's pace even so. It's occasional cruelty will leave it's wounds, but even in those moments, the deep value of time remains. It is precious.

May we use it wisely.

"This is the time you'd like to stay.

Not a leaf stirs. There is no sound.

The fireflies lift light from the ground.

You've shed the vanities of when and where and why, for now. And then

The phone rings. You are called away."

~Wendell Berry

Peace, Love & all that Jazz...