Hope Defers to Time

“It just takes time,” the experts say. “Time heals all wounds.”

I’m sure those statements reflect truth. The passage of time DOES ease some of the sharpness of grief.

Time allows us to ponder what has happened and leads us to a new perspective about life:

• How important it is to love those around us
• The value of helping others
• How one solitary life impacts so many
• Our own mortality within the fragility of each day
• The vital importance of living with purpose

Time mellows us even as aging teaches what is important and what no longer matters. The “stuff” of life eventually deteriorates or ends up in a garage sale.

The really important “stuff” endures: love, memories, family.

Time can become an ethereal quality – something we ignore until it smacks us awake.

How is it we are so quickly marching toward the holiday season when only a few days ago, we were unpacking sandals and swim suits, planning vacations and using extra sunscreen?

How has time so quickly deceived us?

Sometimes time betrays as it folds back the years with alarming side effects. The brown spots I once caressed on my mother’s hand now dot mine. The immune system once taken for granted weakens in spite of healthcare, nutritional information and supplements.

Then one day, we realize we are the seniors of our demographic. We have become what seemed so far away. We notice little children and wish we could backtrack, do life all over again.

In one of the Superman movies, time was reversed so Lois Lane could live. The landslide did not happen. She continued as Clark Kent’s co-laborer and secret love at the Daily Planet.

In this life-changing 2017, I have wished I had the same power – to delete what happened in July – to rewind, pause and do over.

But alas – time continues and the farther we march across calendar pages, the more we realize how vital each day is within itself.

Anna Quindlen wrote, “Grief is the continuous presence of an absence.”

While time may indeed lessen the sharp edges of grief, it is also a reminder of a life lived, a presence that meant something to so many, and the knowledge that even with change – each day continues to beg for hope.

©2017 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved