| Sunny Side Up June 1, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Seniors, you're being watched Youth and vitality are admirable, but I intend to grow old one day, so I watch old people closely. I note the qualities I'll need to cultivate to be like those who inspire me. Faithfulness, for one. I don't mean faithfulness only with respect to one's spiritual devotion. I mean also the qualities of trustworthiness and reliability, less often cultivated in today's postmodern generation. I can't count the hours I've waited for a young repairman to show up when he said he would, even on the same day. He's excellent, but he seems to know little about scheduling or keeping his word. Promises, promises�that's all he gives. Empty ones, usually. The oldsters I know tend to 'show up' and get the task done - when expected, and on time. They stick with the program. Fulfill their commitments. Keep their promises, even when it's not convenient, even when their bodies protest. Something else I've generally observed in my older friends is the marvelous quality of thriftiness. The ability to make do or do without. They fix things. Reuse them. Leftovers become soup. Cracked garden hoses end up as pipe covers. Old cars get stripped, greeting cards cut up and recycled. Unwanted 'stuff' gets re-vamped, given away or sold; rarely merely dumped. (Maybe that's why cash in a senior's hand seems to go further than the same amount in mine.) Another marvelous trait common among seniors is their unbridled patience. Watch them, waiting in doctor's offices and hair salons. Few check their watches. Even fewer punch cell phones in frustration or fuss when their appointment runs behind time. Most merely wait, avoiding eye contact. They'd talk, they say, to pass the time, but few younger people talk to seniors these days. Patience has a twin - perseverance. Some seniors demonstrate that particularly in prayer, praying for years for the same person, never giving in, never giving up. I love listening to the prayers of my parents, well into their eighties now. Each morning they talk aloud to God about every member of their lengthening lineage, bathing them, name by name, in prayer. Entreating God to protect, provide and draw near. Rarely can I listen without tears. And somewhere on the way to old, most of my senior friends have learned what's truly important in life. They keep what's best and leave the rest. A senior friend once urged me to show tangible love - even more than usual - to my rebellious teenager. "Someone's gotta," she said. "If not you, who?" She was right. I've spent time in old woods; heard the sigh of an ancient fir as it sways in the wind. The rhythmic ring of axes, the buzz of chainsaws. The echoing, "Timber!" I've walked through newer forests where all is lovely and green, but no giant trees inspire higher thoughts, lift eyes to the heavens. Every time I attend another senior friend's funeral, I think of that. I hope to be old - I pray to be inspiring. Respond Home |
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