When catastrophe hits, however,
it’s never a good time. You’re never
ready for it even if you’ve had time to prepare. And the sad thing is, Life never stops or
even slows down. Work is patient, but
only so far. They may be sympathetic,
but business has to keep going, projects completed, employees paid, and
customers appeased.
Bills, on the other hand, are not
so patient. The power bill wants money
as does the water and car payment, and if you don’t pay you’ll come home to
another crisis on your hands. Food still
has to be bought because people have to eat, some more than others, and gas
must be purchased or you’ll never get anywhere.
Children still have birthdays and people get sick. Life goes on, no matter how much you want it
to just stop until the crisis passes.
You scream at it to wait a moment, to allow you to catch up and regain
your balance.
But it doesn’t.
It doesn’t even slow down. Why?
Because, sadly, in the grand scheme of the universe, accidents, death,
and divorces are just hiccups. Life
changes for you, but you do not halt the course of life. It’s a sad reality and very humbling. The world revolves, but never around us and
at times that just pisses me off.
It was like that last week. We had said goodbye to Teri’s mom and plans
were being made for the funeral service.
However, other life events had already been scheduled and couldn’t be
postponed. Saturday, a niece was getting
married and Betty’s son was torn. You
can’t just postpone a wedding the day before and pick it back up the following
week. The cake won’t set that long. People have flown in, tuxes have been rented,
and the preacher has already written out his funny one-liners about marriage. Weddings don’t come with pause buttons, only
cancellations and this one had to go on.
Birthdays for little kids need to
go on, as well, especially if invitations have been sent to an entire class
with no way of getting back in touch with anyone. A four-year old doesn’t fully grasp the
concept of death, fortunately, and wouldn’t really understand why the long
awaited birthday party was suddenly not going to happen. So, the party went on. The cake was bought, the bouncy house inflated
and the house that had been filled with tears an hour before now echoed with
the laughter of tiny children, and you know what? I honestly believe I heard Betty laughing as
she looked down upon her great granddaughter.
It was an oasis in the middle of a desert of mourning.
Careers, also, don’t wait. Teri was fortunate. She could carry out many of her responsibilities
remotely. Of course, rarely was there a
quiet place for her to work with all the people arriving, but luckily there was
an extra bathroom she could hide in once in awhile. Not everyone is allowed that luxury,
however. Trucks have to be driven,
theater shows must go on and the corporate world still spins. It’s a sad reality, but futures of the living
can be derailed just for taking time off to say goodbye to a lost loved one. The business world can sometimes be as cold
as a utility bill, demanding your attention regardless of what else is going on
in your life.
Our bodies and those of the
people we care about don’t know to go in to pause mode, either. The day of the funeral Char woke up with a
swollen jaw due to an abscessed tooth.
Our niece started having problems with her intestines again and had to
go back to the doctors, as well. When we
arrived back home, one of Sarah’s aunts was put into the hospital because a
blood clot had traveled from her leg to her lung. The rest of us were just plum exhausted. Still, there is no pause button.
It’s not like I’m asking time to
freeze in one place and never move again.
As much as I love relishing certain moments in life, I want it to go on. I want to experience everything that is yet
to come, such as grandchildren, weddings, and the eight-year old growing up and
moving away to college. I want life to
continue; I just need it to pause for a few days once in awhile. That’s really not too much to ask, is it? Is it?
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