Life

Today, we visited a pastor friend of ours whose wife had been battling cancer for several years and whose time was beginning to dwindle. I was somewhat reluctant to go; I'm not fond of "visiting," especially if they are people that I myself am not particularly close to. Strangely, however, this visit gave me a new perspective.

We drove up to their house when the old couple opened their door to greet us. Though weak, they seemed cheerful. My mom barely had time to sign their card. The wife seemed enthusiastic to have company; she set up chairs for us, cleaned up the house, and offered us drinks. For a little while, we talked with her husband, but she began to get restless and grabbed my hand to show me around. Surprised, I tried to be as polite and cheery as I could. She showed me a special room with a bed that she told me was the bed in which she "would die." I was a little disturbed by that, but politely I told her that it was a nice room. She agreed.

Then she took me outside to her most special place--her garden in which she grew various flowers and herbs. She plucked gardenias and jasmine leaves for me to smell, and told me how she loved to plant but had little strength to, now. We went around the garden about one and a half times, then we went back inside. Without asking first, she handed me a soda. Her husband joked that she was the type of person that was always doing something. He pointed to us a picture on the wall and made us guess how old she was in that picture. We all guessed somewhere between 20 and 30, when in fact, she was 46. We soon prayed for them and left.

Despite the fact that she was, literally dying, they both had an infectious look of joy on their faces. "We live by God's grace," the husband said.

I also developed a new perspective of older people. Often times we lose our respect for the elderly and picture them as simple, little old people slouching on their wheelchairs and staring helplessly at the wall. We never saw them when they were young, beautiful, energetic, adventurous, artistic, and just plain cool, if not during their time.

We are young people. We often feel like we're on top of the world. We're not. In fact, we haven't seen anything yet.

Life is fleeting. Make the most of it, and look up to those who have already seen it.