Pockets of Peace

NOTE: The story below is a fiction one I wrote in 2006. I hope you enjoy it and that you will let me know what you think of it.

A smile begins to form as I sit at the kitchen table and watch the softly-falling snow as it slowly hides the brown earth underneath a blanket of white. A soothing calm settles over me as I gaze at the beauty outside my window.

I linger over my morning coffee, reluctant to focus on the bitter realities of the day. My health is failing fast, as fast as early morning frost disappears under the rays of a rising sun. My daughter Dianne and her family no longer live nearby. Though they had to move across the country to find work, I miss them terribly. And I need them more than ever, now that the man who has been the love of my life for 55 years is slipping away from me, too. Alzheimer’s, the doctor says. Some days, he knows who I am. Other days, he looks at me as if I’m someone he’s supposed to know but doesn’t.

Here lately, my spirit feels as cold as my body did during the harsh winters my parents and I lived in a ramshackle farmhouse heated by a drafty fireplace in the living room and a wood-burning stove in the kitchen.

But, I say to myself as I sip the last of my coffee, we survived those bone-chilling days. By the grace of God, I’ll get through these difficult days, too. I may not be “at ease” every day, but I know I’ll have the strength and resources I need to get through this tough time.

I become even more convinced of that as I recall what happened yesterday. The doorbell rang around 8 a.m. When I peeped through the mini-blinds on the kitchen door, I saw Nancy, one of Dianne’s dearest friends. “My goodness!” I gasped, holding the door wide open. “What on earth do you have?”

“Just a little bit of Christmas cheer,” she said, juggling her festive load as she stepped inside.

Within minutes, she’d placed a miniature Christmas tree on the breakfast table and had unwrapped plates of food that looked more delicious than any I’d seen in magazines.

“Now, for the gifts,” she said cheerily, handing two packages to me. “Let’s get Tom so he can enjoy this, too.”

       

We found him sitting in his recliner facing the picture window, gazing out at the falling snow, his eyes as blank as an unpainted canvas.

       

“Honey,” I said, “come and see what Nancy brought us.”

       

He followed me, his steps (and mine) unsteady and slow. As we seated ourselves at the table, Nancy warmed our food in the microwave oven. “I thought you two would be up and around,” she said. “So, I rushed over to start Christmas day off just right for you.”

       

Other friends dropped by later, bringing gifts and offers of help for Tom and me. One neighbor promised to cut our grass next summer. Another said, “I’ll take you to the doctor whenever you need to go.” The young mother who lives four doors down said, “I’ll deliver your groceries.”

       

So, as I sit here today, I’m greatly comforted by their expressions of love and offers of help. I realize such kindnesses can’t remove my difficulties. But, like the snowflakes drifting down one by one and covering the bleakness of the winter landscape, accumulated kindnesses will mask my hardships—for brief periods, providing me with welcomed pockets of peace like this one.

A Good Life

I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation between two ladies who were sitting across from me at the doctor’s office. Although they conversed as if they were old friends, they were strangers, or so I learned as they openly discussed their current health problems and reminisced about the past.

The heavy-set woman, who was wearing a loose-fitting floral dress and a floppy hat with an upturned brim, spoke with an easy drawl, even though she was describing experiences that had been extremely hard.

As she continued to talk to the tall, thin woman seated beside her, she stared straight ahead; focusing, I assumed, on people and places of the past. She said softly, “I planned to have lots of children, but ended up with only three.” After a short pause, she offered this explanation: “I got the fibroids early.”

The gaunt but regal-looking woman whispered, “We don’t always get what we want.”

“No, but the good Lord knows what He’s doing.”

They nodded in mutual agreement and then sat in silence for a moment,as if reflecting on that truth.

When they began to talk about their childhood experiences, I smiled at them and listened openly as they described a world about which I, also a country girl, had a smattering of knowledge: butchering hogs, eating from a table loaded with the bounty of the land, going barefoot in the Spring and Summer, sleeping with windows opened and doors unlocked….

A gentle smile spread slowly across the thin woman’s face and stayed there, as she said, “It was a good life.”

The heavy-set woman chuckled. “Yes. But I didn’t know it at the time!”

As soon as she said that, I remembered reading these words of another woman: “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”

How true! Why, each of us would be so happy if only we’d savor the current moments of our lives.

Someday you and I, like these three ladies, will look back on this time in our life—with its challenges and stresses—and long for it again. But, we won’t get to re-live it. We’ll only be able to look back on it and wish we had realized the preciousness of people and places that have been relegated to the past. We, too, will get a faraway look in our eyes and realize, too late, that we spent far too much time complaining about our circumstances—and yearning for the next phase of our lives—instead of enjoying the blessings that were ours at that time.

If only we’d reflect on our lives and savor the moments of each day, how quickly we would acknowledge, “I have a good life.” How quickly joy and gratitude would fill us! How quickly we would echo the words of the psalmist, “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits” (Psalm 103:1, 2, New American Standard Bible). How quickly we would give thanks for all the blessings that are ours this day, this season of our lives.