Every other Friday, my husband and I drive to Grand Rapids to watch our three-year-old granddaughter while her parents are at work. Riley has reached a delightful and exasperating age. Having acquired the smarts and persistence to advocate for her desires, she does just that.
Continually.
Riley wants two sweet treats for snack. No jacket when we go to the park. She delays nap time by various means for half an hour – and then doesn't sleep anyway.
"This is why young people have children," I muttered to Ed during our last drive home. "I'm too old for this."
Ed tells me we should enjoy it while we can. Because our days of driving across the state to watch Riley are numbered. Twenty-one, to be exact. She'll enroll in Young Fives next fall.
On the same drive home, we discussed other changes in our lives wrought by the passage of time: Hearing aids. Hiring a contractor to replace some facia boards on the second-story dormer instead of doing it ourselves. And, we've decided to fly rather than drive all the way to Washington and Oregon next summer when we hope to visit our 49th and 50th states.
While we talked, I kept swatting away a fearful thought – that our plans might not come to fruition. One day one of us will die, and the other will be left alone.
Morbid, but true.
A colleague recently posted on her Facebook page a quote by a 35-year-old Ukrainian-born actress and self-described mystic, Delfina Alden, a quote that was picked up by the blog, Mindful Christianity: "The problem is, you think you have time," Alden said. "On average, we get 80 summers…if we're lucky. Don't put off the trip. Stop waiting for life to begin. Stay up late with friends. Get up early to watch the sunrise. Catch every sunset. Book the trip. Go on that hike. Go to the beach. Spend time with those you love. Tell them how you feel." (@heydelfina)
That's deep wisdom from someone who's only thirty-five.
I remember an evening once when we talked with friends late into the night, sitting by the fireplace in a cabin beside the Mohican River in Ohio. We looked at our phones and said, "Wait? What? How did it get to be 11 o'clock?" The next morning we woke to the blue light of falling snowflakes. We marveled at Virginia bluebells poking up through the snow.
But hey, Delfina, there's a problem. When you get to be "a certain age," you have to rest up between adventures. After watching Riley, who spends the whole day testing our mettle, we're pooped. If we had also stayed up late the night before talking with friends, we would have been too tired to drive. Could have crashed the car.
We can't do every sunrise and every sunset.
We're not thirty-five.
If anything, however, getting older sharpens our awareness of what has always been true: Our time on earth is limited. The people we love will leave us – or we will leave them. We don't have control over most things that affect us.
80 summers. 21 Fridays.
Ed and Delfina are right. All we can do is choose to receive each moment as a gift. We can choose to trust in God rather than live in fear of what may come.
Jesus once said, "Why are you anxious about tomorrow? Today's trouble is enough for today." Another time he said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows."
Two weeks ago, while we walked along the Lakelands Trail, bright sunshine backlit the petals of wild sunflowers and made the full heads of the goldenrod glow. "Would you call this late summer or autumn?" I asked Ed.
Then I wondered if I were in the late summer or the autumn of my life. Could be the winter. Hard to know. It depends when I die.
80 summers. 21 Fridays.
Then I noticed how the wetlands were bursting with foliage and color, lush and expansive, yellows and purples and tinges of scarlet. Some of the cattail were starting to release their downy seeds.
I stood in the middle of the path and spread my arms wide.
When fear constricts our vision, God invites us to open our eyes.
In the summer of 2023, Ed and I paddled our canoes out to Lake Michigan from the Platte River as the sun was setting. To the east over the land a clear blue sky trailed edges of pink. To the west over the water the horizon was molten gold. Ed snapped a picture of my canoe silhouetted against all that wondrous light.
God's love is the vast water on which we paddle. Limitless. We can trust the water to hold us up. Whatever comes.
May you know today that you are not forgotten by God. May you savor each moment, sunrise or sunset. May you move without fear toward the horizons of your life.
Scripture: Matthew 7:25-34, Luke 12:6-7
Playlist: "His Eye Is On the Sparrow," Ethel Waters, 2014.