I've decided to pray more over the next few days, but about less...
I think the next couple of days will be primarily about "thank you"s.
I've been thinking a bit about this yesterday, this morning, and I can see that they are all connecting in my head, so I better write about them...
There have been a number of thank yous that I've recieved over the years that have hit me hard. This first I remember was from my grandfather.
I was raised by by grandparents, so for me "dad" was a retired, aging, laconic man, who never made much eye contact with me. I remember he took me to see a movie once ("Tron"). And yes, that's the full catalogue of things I ever did with the man who raised me. Mostly, he just sat around the house, running errands for my grandmother, not enjoying retirement.
When I moved out to go to college, right around 18, he started getting old, fast. I remember one time in those years when he dropped me off at the airport for a trip somehwere and I found out later he had had some trouble finding his way back out to the main road. In fact, he had somehow ended up driving on one of the runways. I think some police were involved and they took his license away after that.
Eventually, I moved far away (Alaska, Portland, The Netherlands...) and he continued to get older. I would go back and visit a couple of times a year, though absolutlely nothing in the house ever changed. It got a little creepy after awhile. Things that had been set in one place temporarily were still in that place a decade later. It was that kind of house and it began to depress me more and more and more to watch it happen.
So it became my grandmother, my grandfather and then my dad, whom they had rescued again (a life-long pursuit), all living in that house together, separate.
I went back for a Christmas visit once to find my grandfather living in my old bedroom. My grandmother had kicked him out of her bed because he smelled. It had fallen to my dad to change my grandfather's adult diapers, something he did less frequently than he should have, and so there was a constant odor about him.
My first night there, I watched in dismay as my dad sequestered himself in his room watching TV, my grandmother said goodnight to me and went in "her" room and closed the door, and my grandfather silently shuffled into my room. I followed him in...
He had lain down on top of the covers on my childhood twin-sized bed with the captains drawers in it, staring up at the posters on the wall, left up from high school- comic book and movie posters mostly.
He lay on the bed in slippers and socks, pants, a button up shirt, a sweater (he was cold) and an old ball cap.
I got the idea that this was pretty much how it went. Every night.
You have no idea how angry I was at that moment.
I knew he had gotten very incoherent. I knew that occasionally he lost control of his bladder. But the thought that he had been kicked out of his own bed, was being virtually ignored by both his wife and son... it was almost more than I could bear.
I pulled my grandfather up and began to undress him. I pulled back the covers and got the bed ready for him and then found his pyjamas tucked in one of my dresser drawers and helped him into them.
As I was buttoning his pyjama shirt, without even really looking at me (he never did), he just said, in a moment of crystal lucidity...
"Thank you."
I nearly started weeping then and there to hear it. To hear words I had never heard from my grandfather, but also to see what they had allowed him to become.
Such a small thing, witnessed only by me. I'm glad I got to do something for my grandfather, no matter how small, and I'm glad for the moment of clarity that came just in time for him to be able to receive it. The only moment I really ever had with the man who raised me... just two words.
Present time:
My son Jack is almost three now. He's got "please" and "thank you" pretty much down, which does my heart good. Recently, I've been getting a lot of unsolicited "thank you"s
"Thank you daddy for taking me to the play place."
"Thank you daddy for letting me watch the movie the Cars."
"Thank you, daddy."
Those very nearly make me cry as well.
I know it's cliche, the whole thing about having a child and how it teaches you more about God. But in thinking of these things, I can't help but be moved to thankfulness- to spend time just saying thank you for big things and small. I can't but think about how much God must love to hear us recognize His generosity to us and simply say thank you.
"Thank you God for my house. It's a really nice one.
Thank you God for my wife- I love her very much.
Thank you God for my children, for their health and how much joy they bring to our lives.
Thank you God for my church- for people who love You, love each other and take good care of us.
Thank you for all you have given me.
Thank you. "
I think I'm just going to repeat those things over and over for the next few days. Not much of a prayer, but I think it's probably enough.
