Wednesday I spoke with a really good friend and family member. We were up at our cabin and my daughter noticed a pickup being loaded up with bags of belongings two cabins down. There was a for sale sign out front, and we knew it had been sold recently. Was it really her moving out? Or was it the new owner moving in? We walked down to see. It was her. Strange...we hadn't really spoken more than two or three times this past year. I knew she was in the process of moving on...moving forward. She had actually been doing it all along, this just made it much more evident. Selling the cabin..."his cabin". She and the kids hadn't been there much in the past year. She also was in the process of moving out of "their house" into "her condo". All big steps. Huge steps really. Steps that she alone would have to take, no one could take them for her.
It has been about five years since I squeezed between she and her husband in their bed and shared a great Taco Bell lunch. He was soon to die from Pancreatic Cancer. We all knew it. That day we didn't think about it. We laughed, ate Taco Bell (very liberating to have it be just fine to eat Taco Bell in bed - with friends), discussed the "little people" the new pain medication had added to his list of occasional visitors, and nothing else...just a visit. It is one of my best memories of his last months. It is the day I came to admire his wife in a way I do few others.
Everyone handles the challenges life throws at you differently. Especially the big ones. And, have you ever noticed everyone else seems to know exactly how best for you to handle yours? She certainly had no shortage of suggestions. I must admit I was one at times who wanted to hurry her journey. Well, I'm absolutely certain that five years ago, I best rephrase that, I think I'm absolutely certain, that I would not have handled the last months of my husbands life as she did. I would have been up cleaning the newspaper off of the chair next to the bed making a proper "visiting space" for those who entered the room. I would not have said "the rooms a disaster...c'mon and squeeze in here!" and as a result, the visit would have been much less fun, much less liberating, simply put...much less. Less of everything truly important.
But that was then...I am fairly certain, as I was taught by her example in the face of the most dire challenge, that now, perhaps I would be able to focus on what's most important... the visit. I try in all areas of life now to say "c'mon and squeeze in here!" I must admit I'm still not great at it some days. (Wish I didn't have to type that but my kids read these.) One thing is for sure...the "rooms" of my life are often a mess, a disaster even - depending upon the day. Just thinking about that makes me laugh. In fact, those of you that know me must be laughing too and hopefully saying to yourself, "well, at least she honest."
You can have peace in your life even in the midst of a disaster. The kind of peace that enables you to say "c'mon and squeeze in here!" There is no need to clean off a visiting space on the chair. Peace much prefers to squeeze in right next to you and share some Taco Bell! Isn't that what we are looking for...the kind of peace that doesn't require a clean room?! I have even noticed that during those times when I am most desperate for a visit...I have cleaned off "the chair" and I am sitting across from it, staring at it, arms crossed, tapping my foot impatiently...eventually (sometimes days later) I look up from the chair and there at the door is the visitor I've been waiting for. Patiently waiting for me to say "the rooms a disaster...c'mon squeeze in here!", and like the good friend that Peace truly is - we share what is most important...the visit.