A young man was commuting to all the departments around the store to say his goodbyes and to share what he’d learned from the particularly seasoned adults who’d taken him under wing while he was employed there. It was his last day before moving to Texas for college. While shopping, it happened I was close enough to hear a few of these encounters, each of which had brought his coworkers to tears. His sincerely thankful spirit was so overwhelming, even listening from a distance, I got a lump in my throat at how he articulated specific fond memories of their work together. He left his trail of gratitude behind from hardware to appliances to gardening. I learned a few things myself yesterday:-Renewed hope in today’s youth. -Home Depot’s incalculable loss. -Somewhere in Texas, this boy is gonna change a lotta lives.-I’d like to meet his parents.
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Rome is burning.
I’m neither a poor man, nor a man of wealth, but as I feel this gripping economic pinch becoming a grope, surely poorer earners are all but asphyxiated by the inflationary prices of everything. I see it in senior clients down to one meal a day, pawning possessions to pay monthly rent increases, working families using up savings and losing financial ground faster than they can make it up. Everyone is cutting here and there but can only do it so long until price increases compound and there’s nothing left to cut anymore. More people are homeless now than ever before, most for the first time ever. In my job, the stories arrive firsthand at our door and we help in all ways we are able, but for many, it’s not enough to preserve even the most basic of human rights and needs. Anxiety, depression and mental health problems create fertile grounds for reemerging addictions and ways of coping that offer no hope whatsoever. Some things need to change and soon. Use your vote for change.While Rome was burning, Nero was merely an impulsive tyrant home in his villa doing nothing.That’s not an option anymore.
in decline.
Having a serious medical disorder isn’t always apparent to others because of how hard you must work to compensate for the symptoms and appear normal. They don’t see the private sufferings and painful episodes you hide from public eyes or know how hard it eventually becomes to hold both the symptoms and yourself all together. The more difficult it is to manage moving parts of a disease, the simpler it becomes to just decline invitations and offer creative reasons for why you stayed home. Your world gets smaller through clever excuses and normal is an all too formidable and lesser goal.The whole syndrome plays over and over, worsening for years on repeat until you, yourself, begin believing the lie that this is actually what spending your best life is supposed to be: a big inauthentic outward smile to mask the inward grimacing. It’s not living your best life.It’s just trying to appear to be living while you’re actually dying inside.
Timeless loyalty.
His entire existence is an utter void of understanding the comings, goings and absences of his only love apart from that moment.
To him, no explanation of time exists gazing out the window for hours on end.
His only hope is a vague awareness that routine of a return exists somewhere in the future.
So on that promise, he remains forever vigilant and alert for that first familiar sound or sign: a key in the door, that affirms his hope and turns it into a wildly wagging tail.
Hands of healing.
Leave it to me to experience something so ordinary yet so awesome…
When Dr. Woods, the cardiothoracic surgeon, came out with the good news about mom’s open heart surgery, I found myself staring, entranced with his hands, while listening to his family report.
All I could think of as he concluded and left was that I had just shaken the hand which, minutes before, had held the very heartbeat of the woman who had made mine and touched it so many times since.
Those who know me know I never use the word awesome unless something truly is. The news was great today, but staring at the hands of a surgeon who had touched her fleshly heart then shook my hand with it minutes later was truly an awesome and unforgettable few moments.
A teaching moment.
The young kid who works the night shift where I get my 430 coffee each morning asked about my name badge: “So what exactly do you do every day?” I replied “In a nutshell, we keep people housed and fed with the lights on.” He said it sounded like a cool job. Not to miss the teaching moment, I asked in return, “So what exactly is it you do every day?” Puzzled at my question, he paused, then replied “Well, I serve coffee, snacks and things people need to get through the day and I try to keep people happy.” As I walked out, we both smiled as he realized, probably for the first time ever, that we are essentially in the same business.I hope he never looks at his job the same way again.
Talk all you want about how you’ve lived a full and meaningful life, did more good than bad, got right with God and the universe, and how you’re ready and good to go with yourself and others. 
I suspect at that moment, when shown the light toward which we all must one day walk, all those noble words of satisfaction, peace and readiness will instantly vanish, meaningless and in vain, eagerly traded in a panic for just one more day, hour or minute to make the one change you always dreamed about but overlooked and never righted in this life, and at that point, never will.
My friend, if you’re scrambling for a reason, this is why you’re still alive.
Carpe diem.
Each new day.
Consider each new morning an open seat at a poker table. Your deal is determined by a shuffle, so accept what’s handed you with grace and the understanding that winning or losing is largely up to you. Don’t cheat, don’t count, use your best skills. Life’s not entirely a game of chance, but when it’s over the best of us smile and tip the Dealer for the chances you were given, departing the table a very rich man to begin anew tomorrow.
Love and aging.
By anyone’s count, he was seven times older but never once left her side. He was her warmth, her comfort, and the one with whom she cuddled each night and awoke to each morning. She prepared their meals and they took walks both mornings and evenings while she reminisced about the days when they were younger souls on longer journeys. Her companion and protector, together 15 years without so much as an argument, they were indeed best friends until last week when he curled up at her side never to wake again.
Lives may pass but loneliness isn’t quite as lonely when you’re old and have enjoyed a lifetime of love and loyalty with a dog.
The Time of my life
Good morning, yesterday
You wake up, and time has slipped away And suddenly it’s hard to find The memories you left behind Remember, do you remember?
It was 1975 when I was just shy of 16, counting myself lucky to have found a legally licensed friend to drive us both on double dates to sophomore prom. As with all proms, it was themed after a popular song of the time. Paul Anka was big back then and “Times of your Life” had just hit Kasey Kasem’s top 10, earning it the theme of our adolescent gala. Today at 61, single and dateless for 11 years, I heard the song again this past Sunday morning on the oldies station and sang along with all the memories it wafted up from days gone by. Back then, and as adolescents with seemingly immortal lives ahead of them often do, we thought it was all about us. We’d understood the song to be about the hope of what lied ahead of us, not of one man’s reflection backward on those experiences which had already long passed into memory.
Tinkering along in the garage as old men do, I was signing a song that brought back so many great memories of high school, while at the same time realizing it was truly a song of reflection on times and experiences long since passed. And a lot has passed indeed. Almost half a century. I thought “So what do I have to show for those 50 years?” What have been those times of my life in particular they say race through your mind like celluloid as you wave and take your final bow only to retire your sore ash self dusted to the four winds over a favorite place you once knew and remembered?
Apart from a knack for run-on sentences, a lot.
My list would first include people like my kids and grandkids, my family, my best friends, my dog, a few bosses, a few pastors, several complete strangers, all of whom might either not exist or whose lives would otherwise be quite different without having spent at least some time or interactions with me. Indeed, they represent the most significant times of my life.
Next would be circumstances. My marriage, even my divorce, my family ad agency, my drug addiction, my recovery, my work with poor seniors and the homeless, and the times I spent writing stories about all these times of my life for others to experience. Finally, I’ve spent much of my life urging my kids to “like things, and love people,” And as one who just recently gave away 95% of my possessions as part of a purge while moving my residence, I condensed all things that ever mattered at all into a 5×5 storage space, which is still more than I can take with me. I’m not terribly thankful for the things I’ve accrued over half a century. In fact, I can’t think of any item that has made any time of my life any more memorable. Honest reflection makes gratitude easy. At 61, I’m most thankful that memorable people and memorable experiences, good and bad, are all that seem to matter anymore. At 16 and self-centered with my whole life ahead of me, I never imagined that this time of my life would be the time of my life.
Good morning, yesterday.