May 31, 2007

Too Young

Retired from school teaching hardly a week, a regular comment I am hearing is that I am too young to retire. That makes me feel good that I’m perceived as “young”, but youth is relative to the comparison. Put side by side with a 65-year-old senior citizen, my retiring age of 54 years might appear to be young. When I look into the mirror, I see someone older than what my mind’s eye sees. My teen years do not feel so far behind me, yet I know they are. If God wills, I pray to have many more good years on this earth.

Should the Lord allow me to live into my 90’s, I will consider it a gift because already friends my own age are passing away. So, if 54 years old appears young to retire, it is even younger to die. One of my childhood friends passed away yesterday when Evil’s cancer claimed her life. She was always a vibrant, petite brunette with a winning personality. Everyone loved Pam. The oldest and only daughter of three children I remember her as a sister that always spoke with kindness about her younger brothers. She often watched over them like a mother. I’m sure Pam’s brothers consider her 54 years to be too few to have lived.

Slumber parties at her house, running under the football stadium bleachers to get out of the rain, and riding around in her little green convertible Triumph when we were silly teenage girls, are some of my fondest memories of being with Pam. One night while riding around, a couple of guys flirted with us at a stoplight and followed us to the Dairy Queen. We imagined they thought we were some hot chicks. Then, as we got out of the car, one of the boys asked to see under the hood of the Triumph. That really took the wind out of our sails! On another occasion, we piled into a friend’s compact car, with too many 15-year-old girls for safety, and went to the East Texas State Fair. We had a blast buying huge purple tissue paper flowers, sailor caps monogrammed with our names, and getting our pictures snapped in one of those quick dollar picture booths. When we got ready to leave the park, we realized that one of our girlfriends was lost from our group. We searched panicked all over that park asking the police to help us find her. When a phone call home revealed the girl had called her aunt to pick her up, the late hour made it unsafe for six young girls to walk unsupervised in a bad part of town back to our car. So, a local TV newsman who happened to overhear us talking to police officers drove us down the dark street to our car. Life was the best back then. We giggled and laughed so much in those days of innocence.

Despite not seeing my friend for at least 7 years, I will miss her. She is part of my life that once was. As a character in the mid chapters of my life story, she accepted the rather ordinary, unpopular girl in me as a friend. In my recollection, Pam never lost her temper and always helped me to feel comfortable in her home. Her daughters, grandchildren, and family will miss the love she poured onto their lives daily. A host of others who call her Friend are better for having known such a caring person. Her life, like so many others, is put to rest long before we are ready to say goodbye.

Goodbye to a good friend. Pam, 1952-2007.

May 6, 2007

Here We Go Again

Its Sunday. The day we go to be refreshed in our Christianity. The day we vow to do better. The day some go to sit in a pew and listen, to pray and read/recite scripture or sing with or without instruments. The day many of us will partake of the Lord’s Supper, His memorial, our reminder that we are sinful and His death on a cross was the atonement for our sins. To some Sunday is the first day of another week. Another week of doing what we do week after week after week. Sunday, the day we look forward to or the day we sigh as we sit down in the church pew knowing we’ve not been the Christians we should have been this week. While some sing “Hallelujah, I am saved”, others are silently praying, “forgive me Lord, save me from my sin. I will try to do better this week.”

Its Sunday, and...”This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Ps. 118:24
Powered By Blogger