Many times in my life I’ve heard sayings like “youth is wasted on the young” or “wisdom is the price of old age”. Last week, while I standing at a funeral, I was again reminded of both the resiliency and beauty of youth and the joy and pain that come with wisdom. Standing there I realized that at 31, to some there I was ancient, and to others I was still a youth. Some days I get up and feel so old and wonder what the point is, haven’t I learned enough yet and can’t I be done? Others days I would give nearly anything to still be a child whose parents had the power to make everything better. However, for this one moment I stood there and was so grateful for both my youth and my age. I was wise enough to look around and realize how grateful I was that I had more time left I my life, and young enough to momentarily see all the possible roads I could still travel “someday".
The Youth there had the benefit of the impermanence of life. They may be sad for a moment but in the way of children they will then laugh and play and be happy. In this way I envied them, and yet perhaps youth is not wasted on the young, for if they completely understood how long life is, could they truly enjoy the happy moments the way they seemed to. On the other hand, the truest peace and happiness I have seen on earth are those who appreciated the life they lived and were content with the choices they had made in earlier times. I desperately wanted at this moment find a balance between these two parts of myself: The youth and the aged adult.
As I contemplate this balancing act I again appreciated TIME! Time is the commodity that can never be truly captured, and it makes memories fade whether we wish them to or not. Looking around I made myself a small promise, I would take enjoy using some of the precious time I have now to reflect on some of my own youth. Looking back through the past to miss and appreciate times gone by. ”. Looking in a mirror I never see the little changes occurring, daily to myself and those around me. However opening an old photo album I could look back and see the changes. I realized how lucky I am to have had three amazing grand-parents.
Grandma Joan is still alive and staying spunky, this summer she will be 80! If I live to be her age then I am just about 3/8 the way through my life. Looking at this old picture I realized that here she would have been just a year or so younger than my mom is now. As a child my mom was old, yet now she seems so young to me. And in my mind my grandmother has not changed at all. She still has the same smile, the same hug, the same attitude; but if asked I know she would tell me that she has changed in the intervening years!
My Grandma Neibaur died in 1994 at the age of 72. If I live to be as old as her I am about ½ way through my life. One of my happiest memories of my grandma was the summer I was eight. My family (those born anyway) and my Grandma and Grandpa Neibaur went to Hawaii for a vacation. Only small pieces of that experience still are with me, but I remember being happy and having lots of fun with them.
Grandpa Neibaur died in 2000 at the age of 89. If I live to be his age then I am just over 1/3 the way through my life! Grandpa was a fighter and I remember sitting and listening to his stories of his youth and being fascinated but in some part of my childish mind these stories were real in the same way the stories my dad read to us a night were. Wonderful to imagine, but so removed from my reality that they must have been invented by him. Looking back now I can only be amazed by his life and grateful I had the opportunity to know him! On this little journey through my memories I realize that I would be wise to acknowledge that you can’t really count on any more time in your life, that you never know what will happen with the next breath. But, my youth gives me the optimism to remember these three wonderful people and hope that someday when I get to the end of my life it will be a life as full as theirs are and were. That whether I have a day, ½ my life, 5/8 of my life, or 2/3 or more of my life yet to live, I couldn’t do better than these three for role models. For these insights and more I am grateful for the opportunity I had to stand with I love at the funeral. I hope that as others go about their own lives they might find some moment where they too can be both the young and the old.
