Slow sips, long thoughts

Some Things You Keep

By Sheri Sobek

Some things you keep. Like good teeth. Warm coats. Bald husbands.

They're good for you, reliable and practical and so sublime that to throw them

away would make the garbage man a thief.

So you hang on, because something old is sometimes better than something new, and what you know often better than a stranger.

These are my thoughts, they make me sound old, old and tame and dull at a time when everybody else is risky and racy and flashing all that's new and improved in their lives. New spouses, new careers, new thighs, new lips.

The world is dizzy with trade-ins. I could keep track, but I don't think I want to.

I grew up in the fifties with practical parents - a mother, God bless her who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then re-used it- and still does.

A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.

They weren't poor, my parents, they were just satisfied. Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

I can see them now, Fifties couples in Bermuda shorts and Banlon sweaters,

lawnmower in one hand, tools in the other.

The tools were for fixing things - a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things you keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, re-heating, re-newing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant there'd always be more.

But then my father died, and on that clear autumn night, in the chill of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any 'more'. Sometimes what you care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return.

So, while you have it, it's best to love it and care for it and fix it when it's broken and heal it when it's sick. That's true for marriage and old cars and children with bad report cards and dogs with bad hips.

You keep them because they're worth it, because you're worth it.

Some things you keep.

Ecc 5:17 Here is what I recognize as good: it is well for a man to eat and drink and enjoy all the fruits of his labor under the sun during the limited days of the life which God gives him; for this is his lot

I heard this today on the radio as I steadily drove down Paris Pike for the 50^th time. That road is like a piece of Kentucky frozen in time. Lately I have been feeling that life won’t ever slow down again. That daily dose of familiarity is so refreshing when everything else seems to be constantly changing. Visiting with the family in the beginning of July got me to realize how fast it all seems to be going, these years. I am more deeply convinced that we have to hold onto these rare and precious moments now more than ever, because they won’t ever be back again. Time is slipping through my fingers like a handful of sand. Since I can’t hold on forever, I will capture and write. Both are tools that will hopefully preserve some of the life experiences that I don’t ever want to forget.

 “It’s amazing how lovely common things become, if one only knows how to look at them.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Marjorie's Three Gifts

The past 6 weeks here in Kentucky have given me a chance to stop and relish life’s blessings. Four times a week I have the privilege of drinking a cup of coffee (or two, or three) with Grandma Zuniga. There isn’t ever any rush. Just slow sips and long thoughts. I’ll wipe her poor nose every 5 minutes, squeeze her soft wrinkled hands, stomp on her feet from across the table to tease her, or just stare into her eyes as my mind flashes back to the times when she would sneak Joe and I glasses of milk behind mom’s back. These afternoons in her house are the most valuable moments I will ever have with her. It’s so sad to think they came so late, but the more I’m there with her, the more I appreciate the times I DO get to have.

            New memories are made with every visit, memories that can only be recalled with teary eyes and a grateful heart. When you become a regular visitor, your heart regularly aches to spend more time with her. Her strong will and spirit of fight still continue to shine through those rare moments when she has the strength to express herself. When I hold her golden crucifix up to her face, she never fails to give Him a kiss. When she finishes her first cup of coffee, she bangs her mug on the table to demand for more. When I played catch with her one time with a tin foil ball, she pretended like she would throw it to me but then throw it to Margaret as a “trick”. She never would have given up on anything if it was up to her. As I kissed her curly head Good-bye one day, I told her “I’ll be back tomorrow, Grandma”.  She replied with the same assurance “If God let’s me be here”.

            The most cherished moments are always the most simple. One morning I walked into her room before she had gotten out of her bed. She was sitting on the edge with one arm leaning to one side, totally crouched over. I sat down next to her and she immediately laid her heavy head down on my shoulder with relief. I grinned with complete contentment, sighed with pity and pondered the irony of the situation. How could I be holding up the woman that was stronger than a bull her entire life? How can it be, that we will all reach this state of dependency at some point in our lives, God willing? I think God longs for each of us to depend on him in this way. Sometimes it takes a lot of suffering and helplessness to realize that we can’t survive without him.  

            There was another time when I was with Grandma all by myself in the living room. I asked her if she knew Spanish and she nodded, responding that she has spoken Spanish her entire life. I continued to speak with her in Spanish, just to see what kind of side it would bring out in her. We started exchanging compliments and smiles. She would say something in Spanish and if I didn’t respond she would ask me if I knew what it meant. The best one was when she said “ Te adoro” (I adore you). Never did I hear such tender words come out of her mouth and it was so special to be the one receiving them. As I left to drive back to Josh and Judy’s house, she told me “Vais con Dios” (Go with God). Something Dad always tells us she and Grandpa would say, and I guess she still uses it.

            Her sense of humor is certainly still in her strong bones too. I was wearing a pair of boat shoes on a rainy day when I came to see her. I was sitting on that orange carpet by her wheel chair, knees up, feet sticking out. She looked at my feet and said “I LIKE your shoes! What size shoe are you?” To her disappointment, I was a size smaller than her, but she made me take my shoe off and exchange it for her blue fuzzy slipper. She continued to say comments like “I wasn’t always a size 8 you know, but I got old”, “just you wait, your gunna get old too!” and she kept examining her foot compared to my shoe, maybe thinking she would find a way to MAKE IT FIT. I’m considering buying her a pair.

           

            I can’t believe how much I would have missed if I hadn’t come here this summer. Nothing will ever replace what I have shared with memaw. I can’t help but wish pepaw was still there in his wooden chair, nodding off to sleep or sliding in clever comments and jokes here and there. I walked into his room today for the first time since the funeral. My heart was flooded with emotion as I thought about how much Grandma needs him by her side. I know he is watching over her from above, but it’s so painful to see her without her other half. Everything in his room reminds me of why we loved him so much. His odd end things stored in recycled containers, his blue jeans that eventually no belt could keep around his waist, his Bible and prayer books stacked on the book shelf, a leather case for keys to who knows what. What he left behind material wise wasn’t much, He used everything until it’s last drop just like he lived his own life; using all of his God given talent to serve others until it was physically impossible. I always remember how at the age of 97, he would still make sure everyone had a chair to sit in on his front lawn before he did. One of the many small details you would pick up on if you spent more than an hour with him.

           “Many of the bravest never are known, and get no praise. [But]that does not lessen their beauty...”
― Louisa May Alcott

“He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

            As the article states in the beginning of this post, I never expected that my time with Grandpa would ever run out. I don't think any of us did. We all thought he would just live forever.Now I find myself walking into his bedroom with a heavy heart, but a peaceful certainty. The certainty that Grandpa lived his "alotted time on earth" in the exact way God intended him to. What an admirable goal to accomplish. Our time on earth is GRANTED to us by God as a gift. He already has the number of days we will live counted out perfectly. My mind has been set on these thoughts for the past couple of weeks.What am I doing with the time God has given me here on earth? Right now He's giving me a huge gift. He's giving me time to love our dear memaw, and I think he's reminding me that one day, my time wll run out too. I only have today to love. Not yesterday, or tomorrow. Just today. Grandma won’t be with us forever either, so for now I’ll keep kissing her curly head of hair and wiping her runny Zuniga nose as many times as I can. If only these days didn't have to come to an end.

“Sometimes what you care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return.

So, while you have it, it's best to love it and care for it and fix it when it's broken and heal it when it's sick.” -Sheri Sobek

Ecc 5:17 Here is what I recognize as good: it is well for a man to eat and drink and enjoy all the fruits of his labor under the sun during the limited days of the life which God gives him; for this is his lot

Posted 27th July 2012 by Jane Zuniga