WHEN YOUNG, WHEN OLDER
When young,
there is little retrospection.
Life is an adventure,
new experiences
which we sample and taste
as if at a smorgasbord,
in which we are so busy living,
we have no time for reflection.
When young,
life is full of expectation:
chasing dreams of a career,
of spouse and children,
seeking after and possessing
that which we presume
will support our expectations and dreams.
When young,
consumed with life,
dreams of God
and that which is everlasting
seem as far away as
traveling to Mars.
Eyesight is isolated to
only the here and now,
not to some galaxy far, far away.
When older,
as life naturally slows,
retrospection creeps into our lives
often unwelcome.
A lifetime of experience,
our virtues and sins accumulate,
like the scars we bear
on our bodies and spirits.
And, that galaxy that seemed
so far, far away,
is as close to us
as our neighbor’s house.
When older,
exciting vacation destinations
to exotic places
are replaced by the mundane
visits to doctors,
medical clinics and hospitals.
The weddings and baptisms diminish
replaced by a multiplying number
of wakes and funerals
not only of the ancient ones
in our lives, but that
of our siblings and friends.
When older,
as we page through the brittle pages
of old photo albums
looking at pictures of children
who became our parents,
we realize that one day,
memories of our lives
will be confined to a fading picture
of who we once were.
When older,
life becomes that of waiting in line,
grasping in our hands a numbered ticket
as if waiting to be served at a market.
The ticket we clutch holds
the diagnosis which will unite us
to the ancestors who preceded us,
and wonder whether those
upon whom we once gazed
in photo albums,
will greet us in person
as we pass from this life to the next.
When older,
we finally comprehend
that much after which we chased
when we were young
was merely a passing fancy,
a temporary diversion from
that which is ultimately
the goal of our lives,
and hope, that we will experience
the abundance of God’s mercy
which Jesus preached,
expanding upon our virtues
and less focused on our sins.
