Whatever He Says

2015 was a plunge into an ocean of change. At the beginning of August I retired from a career I had loved and worked at for almost 32 years. The months that followed went by fast as I transitioned into a new life with both the treasured gift and responsibility, of time. The very first Sunday of my retirement, as I drove out of the church parking lot, I decided to drop in on my mother-in-law, who at 89 finds that  due to some unpredictable health concerns,  watching church on TV works best for her these days. That Sunday afternoon I found her in her backyard sitting on a garden swing. I joined her on the swing, and, for the next hour or so, I reveled in the freedom of no pressure to rush through the moment and the pleasure of her company. After all, I had tomorrow to do everything that needed doing; I had  no  pressing  "to do" list running interference in the back of my mind!  In September I began meeting two friends for a Wednesday morning walk...

On Tuesday when I came home from work,  Paul said, "Belinda, did you drop off the movies at the video store? The video store says that we haven't brought back  The Iceman ." I'd started the week on Monday with Paul calling out as I left the house for work, "Could you take  a movie  back  to the video store on the way?" "Sure," I said, I had a few spare minutes. And I also grabbed the items waiting on the bottom shelf of the hall table, to be returned to the library.  I'd dropped everything off at their respective destinations. I remembered checking inside the DVD cases to check that the  Rizoli and Isles  episodes we'd enjoyed over the weekend, were there, before dropping them into the chute in the outside wall of the library. This wasn't my fault, I was pretty sure, I knew I'd dropped everything off. "Maybe they lost it, " I said to Paul.  Paul hunted high and low in the den, just in case it was still there,...

For the past two days I have attended the  Willow Creek Summit , via satellite. It was  an opportunity to invest in learning, skill development and inspiration.  It's been busy lately, so it was with anticipation that I mingled with about two hundred other leaders at the start of yesterday, grateful to be pulled out of the race for a couple of days. I couldn't help looking around me at people. On the way into the building I noticed a short older woman wearing slacks and a tee shirt and sensible shoes built for comfort, not style. She had a slight dowager's hump and a softly rounded body.  There was nothing remarkable about her features. She wore glasses and her hair was permed into a gray halo. As she wandered the crowd, purse in hand, she looked slightly out of place among all the eager beaver leader types. But something in her drew me.  It seemed that everywhere I went during the two days: the gym at refreshment breaks; the bookstore; the w...

By Belinda I was driving to a Christmas party yesterday morning. In the bright winter sunlight I stared at my hands on the steering wheel. Seriously, I thought, what has happened to these appendages at the end of my arms? They have turned into "old lady hands!" The skin has that shiny, slightly wrinkly look that tells me what my mind and body try to forget. My body is aging--okay, "I" am aging-- and there is no denying it!  Later in the day as I puttered in the kitchen with friends, getting ready for another Christmas party while relating the story of my realization , my friend Magda tried to console me. "At least you don't have these brown age spots," she said, holding out one of her spot dotted hands. I wryly held out one of my hands; the one with a big brown spot. "And you know," I said, "it is too bad! I feel as though I'm only just getting some things right. It has taken me so long to learn the important things, and now ...

Last Tuesday  at work , a few of us had lunch together in a restaurant, to celebrate the birthday of someone on my team.  As the menus were handed out, I didn't have to fish about in my purse looking for reading glasses. No--they were nestled handily, midway between my chin and chest on the cord I had bought the day before . I pointed it out to my co-workers, with both enthusiasm at the convenience, and chagrin at needing one. The two guys on our team were now deep in "guy talk," seemingly oblivious, while the ladies at the table educated me. Apparently there are cords and there are cords.   Mine kind of looked like a black shoe lace with loops at the end, but I learned that they can actually be accessories and came beaded, or as necklaces with little key ring things dangling from them on which you can hang your glasses. Wow, I had no idea.  As the possibilities expanded I made a mental note: "Go buy a better cord." Ah, the power of advertising! But m...

By Belinda Aging: It is when all those things you secretly laughed at in other people who were stereo-typically "older"--things you adamantly said you would never do; appendages or accessories you thought that you would never wear --aging is when those very things suddenly become part of YOUR identity.  The last year has been one of recovering my vision. This time last year I was literally half blind. One eye went through a rapid decline in vision and I needed to get my eyes tested. But I put it off (because I am a procrastinator) until I began to worry that something was seriously wrong. While at a doctor's appointment for a physical, I asked him to take a look at my right eye.  "Oh, yes, you have a cataract," he said, as though confirming something I should know.  "Me? I'm too young for a cataract," I thought but didn't say.  I mean I had only just the year before, lost all semblance of mystique in the bedroom by adding a C-PAP mac...

There are things about growing older that are just plain fun. There is the phenomenon known as "loss of nouns," for instance. I'm all over that. Or maybe it would be more apt to say, "It's all over me!"  I was reassured that it isn't just people getting older who have this problem when one of my small grandchildren asked me at church recently, before coming over to our house, "Omie do you have any of those round white things?"  "Round white things? Do you mean Grandad's Scotch mints?" "No, they're sugary," his eyes were "seeing them" as he talked. They looked far away and dreamy.  "And they melt on your tongue when you put them in your mouth," he continued. All I could think of was those small pastel coloured rice paper flying saucer things filled with sherbet that I used to buy at the sweet shop in England when I was a child. I don't remember what they are called either!...

By Belinda  This is another "smattering," or crazy quilt day.. I lay in bed late, luxuriating in the knowledge that it was sabbath. No chores to do, no list to follow, not even a day of hospitality after church with last minute preparations to be made. Just a generous getting-ready-for-church time ahead. While in the bathroom, sipping on a steaming cup of delicious black coffee as I powdered my nose and lipsticked my lips, the phone rang.  "Did I wake you up?" It was my friend Frances. "I called at 8.30 and there was no answer," she went on with the urgency of a friend who "needs to talk." She told me of having a shadow week; a week of silence from God; of feeling adrift somehow and worst of all, knowing partly why; choices made. Late yesterday evening, she had driven home from work through dark night spun with finest diamonds. As they danced and sparkled in her headlights, she thought with regret of the diamonds God offers and what we trade for ...

By Belinda I said hello with a smile as I strode up the steps of the church, but she, going in the opposite direction, clutched my arm gently, her eyes bright with news to share. Soft perfume wafted around her, and I noticed her elegance and femininity. She wore a stylish, long coat and a silk scarf. Made up perfectly, her eyes were set off by soft, light brown eyeliner; tastefully applied with a light hand and her hair; soft, light brown waves; framed her face. She must have been very beautiful in her time, I thought. She leaned in towards me, conspiratorially, pulling me closer with the hand on my arm. "Did my daughter tell you what they've done for me?" she said, smiling. "No," I said. "They've said I can live with them," she said, "James--St. James I call him, is so good to me." Her daughter and son-in-law (James): in their 50's: had walked on ahead of her as she confided her happy secret to me. I knew that she had b...