40 years and counting!

 I woke up this morning, stretched and began thinking.  I have been in this house at this address for 40 years.  That is half of my life!  How sad that we live our lives one day at a time and then one day realize that what we see in the rear view mirror is our life slipping away!  

What happened to that little skinny girl on Strong Street who wanted to be a missionary?  When did the dreams of working with the natives in Africa and teaching them about taking care of each other and learning about Jesus Christ turn into having a baby every year?  How did I become a mother and grandmother in the twinkling of an eye?  When did I actually set my course on Colorado and watch Kansas recede in my rear view mirror?

There were six of us kids growing up.  Now there is just Donna and I.  I think back to family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins.  I used to have grandmas and all that.  Sadly even my friend list is dwindling.  Slowly, slowly and one by one, my friends are slipping from sight.  Family?  What is family and where is family?  I have 2 kids in Pueblo, 1 in Texas and 3 in Kansas.  Friends?  Probably the friends I had back in Kansas are mostly pushing up daisies!  Evelyn is still there.  Vi moved to Missouri and I never hear from her any more so who knows.  Last time we talked she waved the trump banner in front of my liberal face and laughed.  Fatal mistake.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, the fact that I have spent more years in this house then anywhere else in the whole world!  When mother was alive she used to send me the obituaries of people I had known.  I dutifully dropped them into a desk drawer.  Then I bundled them up and moved them to a bigger drawer.  Then the drawer was emptied into a cardboard box and put on a shelf in the closet.  The pile continues to grow and my memory is beginning to fade.  Names that were at one time so very important to me are now just words on a piece of yellowed paper.  The heart that used to hurt when I thought of my losses is now numb.

Soon I will take Kenneth to Imperial and have him interred under his stone.  Anthony and Annie are resting on my dresser.  Soon I will take them to their new home.  Then I will wait for my turn.  To everything there is a season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up.  A time to laugh and a time to cry.  A time to live and a time to die.  

Right now it is time to let the geese out.  The sun comes up and the sun goes down and I will put one foot in front of the other because that is what we as humans are designed to do.  Sometimes some of God's children get impatient and try to rewrite the rules.  That never would work for me.

Guess I am just old school.