We ring in the New Year with a new story from Dale Angel.
Precious Time Eating Up Life
By Dale Angel
It was a small place in need of repairs, sitting near the road. Scattered across the yard were unfinished projects, small endeavors that could be done with little strength: landscaping out of control, small piles of leaves and twigs raked into mounds, little stacked rocks waiting to be the next project.
The empty porch furniture, comforting only to the neighbors cats. Few come to sit there. Propped up awnings and taped, improvised temporary make do’s…. years past remembering what needed to be fixed.
The family’s bloodlines could fill a village,
The news, of the many trips across distant parts of the earth, miles traveled to beaches and mountains and vacations and their lives busy to visit others.
Only a few miles away sat the little house ….unvisited.
Weak hands trying to open jars, frustrated tears. It makes happiness to be remembered personal interest. Where are you?
Decades are passing in 24 hour increments. Precious time is eating up life spent in activities of detachment from the frail breaths, whether living under the bridge, or dark rooms with little recognition of their existence, maybe a perfunctory ‘hi’ from acquaintances.
A whole village size of humanity is asleep as invisible life breathes and feels the…isolation. A third and fourth generation grow, unacquainted with their heritage.
A world in turmoil are passing laws to force, under penalty, acts of kindness toward family throw-aways. Can love be legislated? We cry out at the cruelty of others we see on TV, yet practice it ourselves with self-soothing reasoning. “Someone else is there to care.”
The mornings come with acceptance. Today will be better. Maybe someone will bring the most expensive gift: time.
Waiting on a park bench, or someone waiting in the house along the road with repetition of old rusty mind sets and outdated information, that’s as new as yesterday to them, Will you tolerate it? Or…
Look in their eyes, you may see flames waiting to catch fire with experiences you never knew existed. There is a heart living nearby.
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