Some years back, I had a customer who would come into my bar alone and enjoy a glass of wine and dinner. Nice guy - maybe ten years older than I was. In talking with him, I discovered that he lived near Pittsburgh. He'd tell me how the place I worked was his favorite stop before he got on the turnpike to head home - all because of how good the food, the service and the bartender (me) was and that he always headed home from our place feeling good about his trip and the return home. For the longest time, I had no idea of the hell he was going through at home.
The last time I saw this gentleman, one of my frequent regulars (is that redundant?) struck up a conversation with him. In overhearing much of their conversation - which bartenders do a lot of, (quite often without trying or wanting to), I learned something that I hope I never forget. Turns out this man's wife had been battling cancer. By this point in time, things were not going well at all for her. And by not going well for her, I mean it was just a matter of time - and likely not very much time at that. Thing is, when one thinks about it, it's just a matter of time for all of us. What matters is how we make use of that time, because time is a very finite gift.
As he was finishing up his conversation with my regular, a conversation that had him shedding a lot of light on the lengthy and painful battle his wife was fighting, how the insurance company had earmarked X amount of dollars for her treatment and then based on statistics, would cut off payments because it just wasn't in their best interests. If I recall correctly, the amount of money allocated for treatment was considerably over a million dollars. After that, they were on their own. It struck me instantly how precious a human life is - at any point really, but here was a woman who was living her life - became a wife, a mother and did how many other things along the journey. It's probably a safe assumption that once she became a wife and mother, that she wanted things, dreamt for things, worked for things and hoped for things for people other than herself. And then one day, something changed...
There's a meme that is floating around on various social media platforms, that I'd like to paraphrase - the point it makes is that we're all an unexpected phone call, a diagnosis, car accident, a broken heart or a new found love away from something that will make us an entirely different person. Some things take but a brief moment, but will alter any one of us forever.
If you Google that in any partial way, you'll get the meme. How you choose to interpret it is entirely up to you, but I digress. Before this gentleman left my bar, my regular shook his hand and said to him:
Regular: Nice meeting you and talking with you - good luck to you.
Gentleman from Pittsburgh: I have luck - I could use some TIME.
I will never forget this man saying those words. I can still hear his voice saying them. Time. When I think of all I overheard this man saying, I consider that we all have time, it's just a question of how much. Certainly the amount is finite. At any given moment, we run with the assumption that we have more of it than we actually may have. We go about our days and often take people, places, moments and so many things for granted. We often don't know what we have until we lose it - or have to move it.
Minutes can pass slowly, while years go flying by us in the blink of an eye. We all have luck - even if we sometimes think it's nothing but bad luck, though quite often our luck isn't as bad as we think it is, but maybe our view of our luck is being influenced too much by negative things and us letting those things overshadow the blessings we could be counting and focusing on instead. Of course there are times when that is easy to do. Chances are that even in these moments there are things that are preventing these bad moments from being much worse. And even in the worst of moments, there is often something that is there to soothe even the most painful of events.
The fact is, nothing lasts forever. Everything has an ending and sometimes the end is a relief, while other times the end is hardship and pain - but even hardship and pain has an end. There are times when none of this plays into our own views of how we want things to happen - and it's not unusual for any of us to want miracles that are based solely on the way we want them to appear and manifest in our lives - but sometimes the miracles that come to pass look nothing like the ones we're asking, hoping or even praying for. Nonetheless, Miracles DO happen.
Luck and time are things we have, though maybe we never really know how much of. Perhaps more luck, and better luck than we think we do, and what if we had much less time than we act as if and think we do? Maybe we need to count our blessings more, and use our time better than we often do. Luck can change in either direction - and often quickly. Time? Time is change, but the direction is always forward - and sometimes that forward is going to be without someone or something we took for granted and didn't appreciate anywhere near as much as we should have.
So I'll close with this thought, and pray that if you're reading this, you'll take the time to realize that even on days when anything sad casts a shadow over your journey, you have luck - and luck that is not always bad. You also have time, and let's hope you have enough of that to let the people in your life whom you love know without a shadow of a doubt that you love them, because none of us really know if we'll have another opportunity to make that known. Making that known can make a very favorable difference in someone's life - and in our own lives. I'll leave this here hoping that any of you who may be struggling with things that seem hopeless, will find it in your heart to believe that miracles do happen, and that you will see those miracles and appreciate them - even when they're not appearing in the ways you're hoping they will. Peace, good people - you're all miraculous.
CRO
