He was walking slowing over the shimmering ice crusted snowy ground. The slight hunch to his shoulders may have been age or perhaps just weariness from the cold. Yet I knew in an instant I did not want to be that man.
It was not his faltering gait as he shuffled along. That could have simply been wisdom responding to the challenging terrain. Or perhaps he was frail and feeble from age, his once handsome body a mere wisp of its former self. It was not his appearance for he seemed normal enough, for a man of his age. He wasn’t overly obese or thin and frail nor missing limbs or blind or any number of physical attributes that we might expect to succumb to age. Still I was immediately certain I did not want to be in the same state of affairs that I perceived in him. I desperately did not want to be like him.
What was his badge of discouragement? What misfortune immediately thrust a wall between us? He wore it proudly. It was his jacket. It was by all reasonable accounts bitterly cold out that day. He should have had a warm comfortable coat on. A brisk wind was cutting through his layered clothing.
His hands were shoved deep within the pockets of his brightly colored, waist length, leather High School sports letter jacket. The slightly tarnished pins for each of his years of participation in each area of endeavor were neat tacked in rows. He had been highly favored. He was admired by many who wished they could have been like him. His name might still be listed on the walls of fame in his former school where he excelled to the delight of so many.
Oh dear Lord, please don’t let me be like him. It was a silent prayer. A thought I would have fervently restrained had I met him face to face. A momentary flashback reminded me of a television program which featured a shoe salesman with a “glory days” lifestyle. He had been the high school football hero who had married the head cheerleader and now was in a dead end dysfunctional family with every future opportunity and dream compared to the good old days. What did I glean from this stumbling old man in his faded yet colorful leather jacket?
His head was hung down with no hope of a different future. He was stuck in a rut without the intestinal fortitude to even cry out for help.
He became for me in that instant the icon of the past trying to live in the present. His image burned itself into my thoughts as the disaster waiting for me if I, for even a moment, rested on the laurels of my past accomplishments.
Paintings are intended to remain as they are. Photographs are purposed to commemorate an event to be held in remembrance. Lives are not. Lives are to be lived. Lives are to be fluid and changing and unique, accomplishing what no other can duplicate. Not because of its immensity but because of its distinctiveness. A marvel of nature is so because it is unusual.
The first breath a baby takes is an exhilarating moment, but it is horrific if not followed by another. There must be more. The first breathe was unique. So each breath that follows must not simply be a duplicate of the one before it but a fresh deep drawing into the miraculous air sacs to sustain that life for its next move forward. A life that stops is a life that is no longer living, it is dead. The life of this crusty faced man who seemed stuck in his past had died when he could not continue to go forward.
Please, my thoughts cried, do not let me stop living. Do not let me stop seeking to know you and the wonders of your grace. Please do not let me cease singing your praises, out loud, openly and on purpose. Don’t let me stop telling others of the wonderful intimacy of knowing you.
Never let it be that my exploration of your world and your presence falter before I take my last breath. I have tried and failed. I have done well and succeeded. I have quietly contemplated to the rich vastness of your universe, only to be overwhelmed by all that my senses could not take in. You are more than my mind can comprehend. Your future and your plans for me are what I desire. I do not want to be him. I do not want to stop living while I am alive. I want to be becoming. Give me I pray new direction each day. Place before me those lives and events that will allow me to live for you. Let the past breathe her last having no grasp where with to cause me even for a moment to admire who or what I was. Tomorrow, no today, let the newness be the beginning of what will be and what I am becoming. Not him, please, not like him.