This morning I woke around nine, went through the usual routine, and sat down to watch the markets.
Hours passed. I watched numbers move across a screen and did little else. At some point I fell asleep in the chair and woke again around six-thirty in the evening. The sun had moved across the sky without me, and I had never stepped outside.
My Gran never had a day like that.
She raised 5 kids, sewed clothes, cooked meals, and worked because her husband died young. There were too many mouths to feed and too much life demanding her attention for a day to simply disappear.
And yet mine did.
Moments like that make a man take stock of the life he has lived.
For years I measured my success by numbers—how many jobs I completed in a week, a month, a year. Bank balances. All proof I thought, that I was doing well in the world.
Only later did I discover the cruel irony attached to those measurements.
A life can look successful by many standards, but if relationships are not among them, the result is flawed. I learned that lesson slowly, and far too late.
Age has a way of sharpening the view behind us. I see now how often I valued the wrong things while simply being with people took a back seat—or no seat at all. I believed I could always shift toward a quieter life later, one centered more on peace and connection.
But life rarely works that way.
As a kid, all I wanted was money so I could buy things. Today I can afford almost anything I once dreamed about.
What I want most now is what I used to have.
Before I ever had a dollar, I was already rich.
My mother loved us without condition while carrying burdens that might have crushed someone else. My grandmother held a family together with little more than determination and sacrifice.
I didn’t know then how wealthy those moments made us.
My mind drifts often to those gatherings at Gran’s house—kids playing outside, the old telephone party line we used to fool with, and the spearmint Lifesavers she handed out one at a time because the rest of the roll cost another nickel she didn’t have.
Kenneth’s strange laugh. Peggy’s big hair and beautiful smile. Cousins running through the yard.
A world that felt uncomplicated and permanent.
Of course it wasn’t.
Time stepped in and carried it all away.
The weight I carry now is regret—regret that I pushed some people aside who are gone forever, regret that I didn’t show them often enough how much they meant to me. In prayer, I ask God to forgive those things, and I believe He does.
But forgiving yourself can take longer, if at all.
Faith is what remains for me now as I move through this final chapter. I pray for those who are gone and for those who remain.
Sometimes I have to remind myself to add my own name to that prayer..
These days I ask God for guidance and a path that is clearly lit. What I should do with whatever time I have left is a question I ask almost daily.
The days are quiet now.
And my mind keeps returning to a place in my life when I already had everything I would ever need—
long before I realized it.
