Important Enough

Yesterday we barreled along the railroad bed and scrambled up the stony rise to stand shouting and cheering somewhere along the eleven mile mark.  One hundred twenty-three runners had set off an hour earlier and this was our last chance to applaud them before the finish line.  I showed off a little -- leaping extra high and running harder than I've done.  I was wearing sturdy shoes and it was a great day to be alive.  

Most days are not so definitively exhilarating.  But then again, most days are not conversely tragic.  The majority are filled with the ordinary that only becomes bittersweet when juxtaposed with calamity and loss.  Two years ago we were very different people.  Most human beings alter over time, but we are a group that is dramatically changed.  We don't talk about it often, because there are few words for the feelings always gurgling beneath the surface once you have caught a frank look at mortality. 

I try to leave the bills always in order now, and pick up my dirty laundry from the floor in case someone else has to unexpectedly deal with the mess.  I don't wait for the right time for certain conversations and I let go of hurt more quickly.  Most importantly, I notice the gifts of the everyday moments.  

In Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town", Emily, who has died in childbirth, wants to go back and see the dear home in Grover's Corners one more time.  She is advised to pick the "least important day" of her life, as "it will be important enough."  As she stands among her family, unobserved, she grieves for what the living are missing, caught up as they are in the details of life.

"EMILY:  It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed... Wait! One more look.  Good-bye.  Good-bye, world.  Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and my butternut tree and Mama's sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up.  Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you!
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?

STAGE MANAGER:  No---saints and poets maybe.  They do some." 

It would be too exhausting to live each moment under the weight of the uncertainty of life, and it is a relief to trust that timetable to God.  "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."  But there is a wisdom gained when you look at life from the other end.

At the finish line yesterday we clapped and yelled and proudly waved.  
In the spirit of poetry we hugged a little harder and stood a little closer; 
...and we took the time to look at one another.