Signora Sheila

Most of us do not like endings. Beginnings are fun and exciting, with new things on the horizon. But endings mark the conclusion of something, with words like cessation, separation, mourning, goodbye, and farewell. They often carry with them a sense of loss.

We experienced this sense of loss during our recent stay in Hubby’s hometown. Every trip to this village of mostly old people marks some kind of loss. Funerals, death announcements, a declining population, and the end of an old-fashioned rural way of life.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Ecclesiasted 3:1

This trip also brought the realization that we might not have the strength and energy to go there for many more years. This started a big campaign of clearing out and simplifying. Simplification is the only way I can manage to keep visiting there.

For me, the KISS strategy, Keep It Simple Sweetie, is the most effective approach to dealing the health and energy challenges of old age.

Over-taxing tired old minds and bodies doesn’t make sense. It is true that the mid-60s aren’t that old; but they aren’t that young either. My motto is prepare while you still have strength and energy!

All things come to an end

But enough about that. As we descended the long, long stairstep street with some things we wanted to take back home, our thoughts and conversation centered on the sad thought of our final farewell to that quaint hamlet. For surely that day would arrive. As Hubby said, “All things come to an end.”

Along the way a special extra large wine bottle toppled over and broke. “I repeated his words. “All things end.”

I don’t usually mourn the loss of things, mere stuff. But that broken bottle, meant to become a pretty flower vase at home, got to us.

It seemed as though it was the end of an era. Even though we can likely go for at least a few more years.

Then a few weeks after returning home to Abruzzo, our cuckoo clock broke.

Every ending carries a legacy

Our family has a particular relationship with cuckoo clocks. My grandmother’s cuckoo fascinated me as a child. The symbol of a snug and cozy home.

Naturally, I wanted one in my own home, so Hubby gifted me one about 40 years ago. Apparently, that clock had the same effect on our daughter and they got one for their home too.

Our Mr. Cuckoo met his end years ago, after diligently ticking for 30 years. He still hangs on the wall as a memento and charming decoration. Getting rid of him seemed almost like eliminating a family member. His working days had ended. Indeed, as all things end.

When Anne and family moved back to the States, they left their still working cuckoo with us. It lasted another 7 years. That was the cuckoo that recently retired. All things come to an end. It now hangs in their tiny vacation house near us.

But our family cuckoo clock legacy lives on. (Maybe our family is just a little cuckoo!) Our daughter got a new cuckoo for their home in America. But we’ll never get another; they’ve gotten too expensive.

Above is a photo of our last cuckoo and its replacement. Our new clock cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, but another pendulum clock seemed like the only suitable replacement. How could we possibly replace him with an ordinary motionless clock?

Yes, all things end. But for every ending there comes a new beginning. Someone dies, but a new birth occurs. Plants get uprooted, and new crops emerge. New things replace the old and broken things we throw out.

Your own endings and beginnings

We all face endings, deaths, and closures. In the midst of them, let’s remember that these past chapters of our lives carry both a legacy and a future. Something of them lives on in the lives of the people we’ve touched. And out of them, new and often better things can come.

That’s what we’ll try to keep front and center as we face the final chapters of our own lives.

• As we face the loss of family, friends, and neighbors – we’ll rejoice over the new births occurring daily.
• As we face the future closures of homes we’ll concentrate on the blessed years we enjoyed there.
• And as we clear out stuff to make our older years simpler and more manageable – we’ll remember that God daily provides all we need.

There is a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to keep and a time to throw away…

Our amazing God holds all times and occasions in His hands. All endings, including our own. And in the midst of them, He always does something new and wonderful!

“Behold I am doing a new things; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 43:19

He will always make a way for us through this wilderness world. And provide rivers of fresh water no matter how hot and difficult trials become. Until that final day when He takes us to our eternal new beginning!

📷 Image credits: hourglass; others are mine