Before You Measure The Years, You Measure

I Thought About All The People I Knew Who Spent Many Of Their Waking Hours Feeling Sorry For Themselves. How Useful It Would Be To Put A Daily Limit On Self-pity. Just A Few Tearful Minutes, Then On With The Day.

The Truth Is, When Our Mothers Held Us, Rocked Us, Stroked Our Heads -none Of Us Ever Got Enough Of That. We All Yearn In Some Way To Return To Those Days When We Were Completely Taken Care Of - Unconditional Love, Unconditional Attention. Most Of Us Didn't Get Enough.

A Wind Blew, And The Sand Around His Drawing Scattered. He Wrapped His Fingers Inside His Wife's, And Father Time Rekindled A Connection He Had Only Ever Had With Her. He Surrendered To That Sensation And Felt The Final Drops Of Their Lives Touch One Another, Like Water In A Cave, Top Meets Bottom, Heaven Meets Earth. As Their Eyes Closed, A Different Set Of Eyes Opened, And They Rose From The Ground As A Shared South, Up And Up, A Sun And A Moon In A Single Sky.

Lost Love Is Still Love. It Takes A Different Form, That's All. You Can't See Their Smile Or Bring Them Food Or Tousle Their Hair Or Move Them Around A Dance Floor. But When Those Senses Weaken Another Heightens. Memory. Memory Becomes Your Partner. You Nurture It. You Hold It. You Dance With It.

You're Not Going To Fix Things By Helping 65-year-olds Or 75-year-olds For Any Long Run.