88 Years

At the beginning of the week, I attended a funeral for my step-mother's sister.

At the time of her death, she was 88-years old, and had five children, 11 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren...and had been married to her husband for 60 years.

I listened to the pastor recount memory after memory of reading to her grandchildren, making homemade ice cream for the Fourth of July, logging in over 9,000 volunteer hours at a local hospital, serving as the confidant and non-judgemental keeper of everyone's secrets, hand cracking walnuts to give in small mason jars over the holidays and always having hand wrapped goodies for kids in her family and those who happened to stop by.  She had an extraordinarily full, rich, lived in 88-years of life.

I didn't have much time following the service as I drove to to give a presentation.  But sitting in traffic, it hit me that at the age of 43, I am nearly half-way to where she so graciously journeyed.  Who knows how long that I will live or be married or how large my little family will grow to be...but along the way, I wondered what she was thinking.

Is it possible to savor it when you're in the thick of it?

Can you only fully appreciate it in the reflection?

Can you not know the beauty when you're entrenched in the details?

Or does the small stuff not add up to the big stuff, but rather, just count by itself the most?

My son, Sam (13) is getting taller and more independent by the minute.  And this year, will see him graduating from eighth grade and heading to high school.  What does that even mean, and why is it happening? 

Yesterday, a boy called on the phone for Kate (11), and she graciously accepted a play date of Legos and Hogwarts dialogue, all the while, being thrilled that her Kool-Aid died hair would look cool for the excursion.  What the what?

And Claire (7) reminded me that this is her year for full-on Tae Kwon Do and First Holy Communion.  And, yes, in that order.  Sweet Mary Mother of God.

They really do just grow.  And, I guess, so do we.  And then, we die.  All of us.

And no one knows when your day is.  And no one knows how many years you get. 

But man, sitting in her funeral, I thought, "I want that."  I want Paris and Tuscany and penning a novel, too.  But really, when it's all said and done, I want that.  A room filled with babies and couples laughing and reminiscing about all of the ways that she was the glue that held their family together.  And when you think about it, that's not hard.  It's just intentional.  It's a choice to choose to be available over and over and over again for the people you love.

And she got to do it for 88 years.  Christmas cards, homemade fudge, salsa, football games, informal and formal gatherings.  She was present, until the end.

Such a powerful lesson for me to know that it can hurt to see them growing, with the inevitable leaving on the horizon...but if you know them, really take the time to invest in them, they'll always come back to share their stories and eat your fudge (or maybe in my abode, drink my coffee).

Here's to 88 years of real living...