71 Hope

19 January 2017


In a recent email, my young cousin-in-law was praising Cheryl & myself for being wise in how we are managing this stage of our lives. I want to give you part of my reply because I don't feel  particularly wise.

Andrea, you are just as wise as us or even wiser and the only difference is that we are just a few small steps ahead of you on the trail of life so we see a little more of the view ahead. My parents would often say to me "you will understand when you are our age" as though I was stupid and naive but it is just the simple fact that our model of the World contains a little more data and our actual thinking skills have to be declining with age.  "Now, where did I put my glasses, I had them a moment ago"!!!

You, in your wisdom, go straight to the essential point - HOPE.

When we honestly consider the time we have remaining on this planet we have to consider how we want to spend that time. It's a bit like someone saying to you "How do you want to spend your birthday?"  You would never say "I will be miserable because the next days after will be boring and nothing special".  If today were my only day of life I would make the most of it within my physical limitations and it would be wonderful. The last pages of a well written book are where all the loose ends seem to come together and all the mysteries are solved. Our task as we age is to become better life-book writers!

Working out a good ending to a story is a challenging task and I feel lucky that I have some time to sort things out. I feel sorry for people meeting sudden death unprepared since that must be a very frightening experience.

 
p.s. I had some humorous pictures in the blog to illustrate some points but Cheryl didn't approve so I deleted them. (Rule 328 - "A happy Wife is a Happy Life") Cartoons and pictures will return in future blogs.😇