it's the middle

this one needed to be written outside. It's early morning Saturday at my house and 52º with a slight breeze. A bit cool but very nice. It's March 2020 and going on 4 months since my life blew up. The new medication for one of my health issues instead of giving me more energy like the doctor told me it might, has actually been taking my energy level down or could it be my general mood I'm not really sure anymore. I pulled up an old chair at the garage door opening where I could sit down and as I looked towards my next-door neighbor's house some memories began piling up from several years ago when she had a handyman type fella come over and paint the trim and do some grout work around some of the brick that had separated. I can still see where that work was done and I remember the process. him doing that. Ms. Edwards was an elderly lady in her 80s or 90s who didn't talk much to other people and more or less stayed locked away inside her house since her husband had passed away some years before. She was a kind lady who was frail and already into her 4th quarter of life when I moved here some dozen years or so ago. She was the first one I spoke to and got to know. I was her long-haired new neighbor who she more than likely would never have talked to but for my reaching out to her that one day when we became friends and I let her know she could call on me for anything and that I would be looking out for her. 

The only time I would see her outside was to get the mail and tend to a bush at the front of her house that produced these brilliant red flowers every spring. She would reach in to cut a few of those flowers to take in the house and she did that every year and she would tell me how much she loved those flowers. I would sneak some fertilizer in under that bush from time to time to keep it healthy but I didn't tell her. The hedge is still there and every year it produces those flowers she loved so much but Ms. Edwards passed away 4 years ago while I was out of the country on some work trip and I miss her and remember her often especially when those flowers bloom.

This is a nice mostly quiet part of this neighborhood and I'm sitting looking out at the leaves that trickle-down my driveway with the breeze making that clickety-clack sound a leaf makes even when there's no life left in it. A car drives down the street and the leaves that have served their purpose all gather and fall in behind the car as if chasing it away.. The silence for me here is fitting for the time in my life. The phone isn't ringing and there is no reason any longer for me to know exactly where the phone is to see if I've missed a call or a message. There are no messages on that phone any longer that speak to me and no email alerts I have to keep on top of. The deafening silence emanating from all corners of my life and the heartache that will not let go is now my world.

In our beginnings, we have no control over much other than this natural need to touch and feel.  There is a purpose for us being here that all too often only gets realized long after much of our lives have been lived. For me, there seems to be 3 stages of our existence here and two of them are completely beyond our control. There is the beginning and there is the end and those are left to a much higher power than we ever fully understand and then there is the stage we have total control over and it's the part of life we choose to lead between the other two. It's the middle. 

 When mom passed away a flood of wishing I had another minute or hour or day to talk to her and say all the things I had said already but just wanted to be able to say again and one more time. I tried to make a deal with God I would do anything to have one more hug one more smile, one more minute with her. Those prayers were answered but not the way I intended. The answer to my prayers were to learn the lesson that all those times in between my beginning and her end when I would see her and be with her all those times, or when something got in the way and it was 3 or 4 days before we saw each other again and God wanted me to learn how important those times really were and why they were not have been wasted on something so very much less important and oh do I ever get all that now-

It's going on 4 months now since the end of her life here on earth and I realize now more than ever how important that middle of life was when we cooked lunch for each other, talked, sometimes argued and laughed till we cried at the stupid things we would see and hear about. Mom was an extremely attentive and wise lady who had already experienced much loss and happiness in her long life and she no doubt fully understood then how important that time was going to be for us both when the end would eventually come. For me, it was just another weekend, a Saturday lunch and a Sunday dinner with the most important person ever in my life. Very important times but so much more important now than I realized then. As I type right now a single brilliantly red cardinal is singing in the tree above me. My mom loved cardinals and I'm taking this as a sign that she alone sent to me to lessen my constant despair.

I think there were a lot of times that I failed to recognize the importance of the middle of life and instead just kept rushing towards the end that indeed will come soon enough for me and already did for her. That is where my regrets are today and why I continue to ask my mom and God and myself, for forgiveness. The beginning you have no role in, the end is going to come with or without you being ready for it, and it's the middle you can control and if you do that middle part of life right, your end will be filled with much more peace and much less regret.