My Saturday Thoughts

Saturdays are usually spent at play or at work for me; the latter reigns of course. Today being one of those, I started the day dreading having to work while others were enjoying a day in rare form in North Texas. We had NO wind, 60 something degrees, and hardly a cloud in the sky. Most days, lately, have been ravaged by winds and filled with the distant smell of North Texas grass burning away to mere ashes.
So, today was definitely a jewel of a day, one of which I was jealous of even the large guy across the street, sweating like a pig, mowing his dead grass. Why was he mowing dead grass? Maybe he was bored, maybe he was mowing, just in case a rouge ember caught a blaze his beautiful driven on yard, maybe his wife and he were arguing and he did it to get away for a bit, or maybe he just likes mowing; whatever the reason, I was jealous of him because he was in the great outdoors and I was stuck. Stuck inside, watching the world go by on a beautiful day. As the day crept ever so close to the one funeral I had to work, the reason for not enjoying the day, I began to think of why I was doing what I was doing. It was not for the check I will receive in a week. It was not because I want the corporation I work for to succeed; it was not even for the maintenance of our family name and reputation. Today was spent loving a family who had a tough go at life. The little lady who passed away had suffered from Cerebral Palsy and was crippled for 66 years prior to her passing. As I sat in the service, the minister asked for people to stand and say a word or two about the lady. I was almost in tears at the stories I heard. This little lady could not even walk as a child but found the courage to teach herself to do so, wobbly, but walking. She touched lives with her spoken words of love for people, though she could hardly talk. She found the strength to forgive those who made fun of her illness and would just say, "People are people." One lady spoke of the night she passed away saying that she had a alphabet board she pointed at to spell words she was trying to speak, since she lost the ability later in life. She was visiting with her and slowly, we'll call her Sue, started spelling out something. This lady couldn't make it out at first, but finally realized that Sue was simply saying, "I love you." Even on her death bed, she cared about letting people know how she felt for them.
She taught me that you can if you want to, you will when you need to, and you suck it up when you have to. Such simplicity, but yet I found myself below her standards of living. Sometimes, it takes simplicity to remind us of how complicated we make everything. This little lady definitely made me think and made my afternoon, though I didn't enjoy mowing my lawn in the middle of winter, for no apparent reason, one I won't soon forget.
Happy Saturday!

-approved by Farley Wells, CMDI.