It’s the last day of 2011 and it’s the kind of day made for reflection. By any measure, it was a day of simple pleasures and little stress. We took a break from putting away holiday decorations to enjoy a late-morning visit with our friend Marlena and her daughter, followed by a trip to the veterinary clinic for an annual check-up for one of our dogs. Then back home, where my husband and I sat near each other, each reading a book silently, looking up every so often to smile or comment on the antics of the four sheltie “children” frolicking in the living room. We had a nice visit with our friend Sara, sharing hot chocolate and rice krispie treats, and then settled into an afternoon with nowhere to go and nothing to do. And somewhere, in the quiet moments, I got to thinking about what I’d learned this year.
I have learned that life’s most powerful lessons come when we linger – when we stop rushing and take a deliberate pause. When we realize that the most meaningful moment is now.
Roses for Grandma
I come from a family without a religious tradition. So I don’t know how I’m “supposed” to handle death. On August 13th, I went to the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents are buried, to bring a bouquet of red roses to commemorate what would have been my grandma’s 89th birthday. I laid down the flowers and immediately looked back toward my car, thinking there was nothing left to do but drive home. But something told me to linger.
So I sat down in the grass in front of the gravestone and listened to the birds. I slowly and deliberately brushed each piece of dried grass, thrown from the mowers, off the marble to reveal its lettering more clearly. I arranged the flowers perfectly. I smelled them and remembered how I
always brought my grandma flowers on Valentine’s Day and on her birthday. I took a moment to wonder what my grandpa was like; he died before I was born, when he was just 8 years older than I am now. I wondered what it must have been like to have been widowed so young, and how my grandma’s life was changed by that tragedy.
I stood up and starting wandering the row of burial plots. The stone next to my grandparents belongs to a couple whose wedding date is inscribed in a heart shape, right between their names. They were married on August 22nd – the same day that Robert and I were married. It made me smile and make a mental note to put that in my will – to ask my family to have my gravestone commemorate not just my birth and my death, but the days – like my wedding day – when I was most alive. Further down the row was a stone with three names – mother, father and 13-year-old boy – who all died on the same day. I lingered at length, wondering if they were in a car accident or a house fire, and wondering who gathered around their caskets to lay them to rest.
The other side of the aisle had more stories. Two brothers – one who lived to be just 4 and another who died at 10 – their deaths several years apart. How could one family be so unlucky? Did their sons both have the same genetic disease? Did the second child know what fate awaited him? How do two parents ever recover from this kind of double tragedy?
I never knew my great-grandparents, but am glad that they are buried in the same cemetery – and the same garden row – as my grandma and grandpa. I walked down to their stone to brush off the dried grass and to give them a warm smile.
And then I turned around to look out across the entire cemetery and saw a fascinating sight – several sturdy, stately trees sheered off in the middle of their trunks by a tornado that passed through the past week. I snapped a photo and went back to my car, thinking of the phrase “cut short” and not sure whether I was thinking of the trees or the little boys, or both.
Lingering Matters Everywhere
Perhaps you’ve heard the Alabama song “I’m in a Hurry to Get Things Done.” It’s really the theme song of my life – not something I’m particularly proud of, but an acknowledgement that means I can make meaningful change. I am always working too hard and too much, rushing from place to place, assembling achievements, scheduling more commitments, amassing “to do” lists that rival each previous “to do” list. And I infrequently take a moment to just think – to take a deep breath and to reflect on where I’ve been, what I’ve learned or where I’m headed. The inexcusable lapse between my blog posts is itself a tiny bit of evidence that I have spent much of my year rushing, and not enough of it reflecting.
So, while I’m not much on the idea of “New Year’s resolutions,” I am making one this year. I resolve to linger. More often. And longer.
Because I think lingering matters. It matters at work, where the choice to slow down before rushing off to the next meeting could mean choosing to share a compliment at how a difficult business issue was handled. It could mean impacting a career in a positive way, or building an alliance or gaining clarity. Sometimes being late to the next meeting is worth it.
Lingering matters at home. Just this week, I went to bed in tears, feeling overwhelmed with the discovery that the failure of a piece of computer hardware meant that I’d lost nearly everything I’d written – personally and professionally – between 2002 and 2007. I was distraught and angry and lashing out at my husband, who didn’t deserve it. Once the lights were out and we had both crawled under the covers, I expected Robert to fall asleep without another word or gesture. But he listened to me crying and he chose to come linger with me. He slid over to my side of the bed, wrapped his arm around my waist, and said nothing.
Lingering matters with friends and with strangers. This past summer, I took a long lunch break to go to the neighborhood park with a friend and his two sons. We lingered there long past when I normally would have gotten back to my desk. We lingered so long, in fact, that I got a horrible sunburn. And it was fun, and relaxing and joyful, and exactly what I needed.
And yesterday, I met a 94-year-old woman who is housebound and under the care of hospice nurses. I had been told she loves dogs, so I brought two of my pups to visit with her. And long after my mom – who introduced me to my new friend Betty – suggested we leave, I lingered. I watched silently as this amazing woman who has lived nearly a century got lost in the sensation of petting a five-pound puppy with her own tiny, frail hands, and in the joy of being kissed on the nose by this gentle creature who doesn’t see her wrinkles or care that Betty turned off her hearing aid.
In 2012, and always, I hope you linger. I hope that when you’re in the middle of a busy day, and have a nagging feeling that one of your colleagues is struggling with something that is going unsaid, that you will approach her and ask if she is okay. And then that you will have the courage to wait, in silence, for her to feel and acknowledge your emotions – for her to recognize your compassion and concern and to let down her wall for a moment to share what is bothering her. It might take just five minutes for you to take pause to remind yourselves that we don’t check our humanity at the door when we enter the workplace each day.
Quit rushing. Start breathing more deeply. Go ahead and close your eyes the next time you are kissed or someone tells you they love you. Brush the grass off a gravestone or go back for a second hug before a new friend departs. Smile before you walk away instead of after. Look your spouse and your children in the eye tomorrow during dinner. Ask someone how their day was, and if they say, “fine,” ask for more detail. Then sit back and listen.
Life is in the lingering.
