It’s not always as late as you think
For a
heart-pounding minute I thought I had overslept to a ridiculous degree on
the very day when it was especially important to be on the job because a
co-worker planned to be gone. When I woke up, the unforgiving red digits
on the clock plainly indicated it was later than late.
I rushed to
the kitchen to see what time it was there. The same
—
past 2 o’clock.
The thought of a power outage crossed my mind, but the numbers on the
bedroom clock would have been flashing in that case.
By the
amount of daylight, I knew it couldn’t be 2 a.m.; it had to be 2 in the
afternoon.
It was
unthinkable. I remembered impressing on myself the night before that I
must get up and get going when the alarm came on and not treat it as the
usual advance warning with another half hour or so of rest allowed. To
have slept clear through the morning after all that was a major breach of
acceptable behavior.
It was also
an uncomfortably familiar feeling. On Sunday morning I had awakened just
before the alarm but, in momentary confusion, had to assess exactly which
day it was and when I had to get up to do what. Instead of sleeping later
on Saturday, I had followed a more regular wake-up schedule in order to
attend a funeral service, so Saturday felt like Sunday, but the next
morning was Sunday nonetheless and required the same pattern of events
again.
Suddenly the
facts fell into place. I had gotten up early on Sunday as planned, and I’d
been to church — the fourth trip in four days. All the music practice
was done, the funeral was done, the regular Sunday service was done, and
it was still Sunday, not Monday! I had just fallen asleep after eating
lunch.
Relieved
that Monday morning was still hours away, I went back to bed for a while
to think things over.
When I had
turned the corner near the fairgrounds on my way out to church one of the
previous evenings, all the tents in readiness accented the contrast of the
fair and the funeral. As a hymn says, "In the very midst of life
Death has us surrounded."
I’m used
to that concept, reflected not only in the life and death of individuals
but also in the history of communities, organizations and patterns of
living. For me, the sense of nearness to dying is strengthened by the fact
that I’ve spent most of my life in rural and small-town mid-America. An
aging population with fewer young people is the kind of society that I
know.
For me, the
surprise is not so much that there’s death in the midst of life but that
there’s life in the midst of dying.
I take it as
a given that everyone is going to die. For some it will be sooner and for
some later. It’s just a matter of time. I don’t regard that as an
ultimately gloomy prospect. Heaven is a destination far more wonderful
than the best of fairs.
For the time
being, the amazing thing is that in spite of accidents, illness and
ordinary deterioration, there’s still life. Some people who had young
families 25 years ago are gray-haired grandparents today, but it isn’t
time to write everyone off just yet.
The morning
after the funeral there were people in church. Only one man had been
buried. Although many of the members are retired, a family with 2-year-old
triplets and an older sibling sat upstairs. The bulletin announced that a
new pastor would be installed the next Sunday, and he was on hand to meet
people. The future held promise.
As life hurtles along, sometimes
we get overly concerned about what appear to be negative prospects. With a
re-evaluation, sometimes it’s not too late after all.
[Mary
Krallmann]
