Signora Sheila

Life is so changeable. Time never stands still. What exists today may not be there tomorrow, and one day it will certainly pass away. And that’s good. The good things – we’d like them to last forever. But imagine if the bad and negative things went on forever. What a nightmare!

Time goes on. Things change. We change. Autumn always brings such thoughts to me. Our anniversaries fall in October and November. (No, we weren’t married twice. I’ll explain in a moment.) But as the years pile up, I notice more and more how quickly time passes.

Our Anniversaries and the Roman Summer

Our anniversary celebration lasts the whole month of October. Because we met on October 1st and got married on November 1st, exactly one month later. This year we’re celebrating 37 years of happiness! We didn’t have time for much courtship before the wedding, so Hubby decided to make up for it over the years! 😉

On October 1st we dined by the sea with gorgeous summer weather! A real Roman summer this year – how blessed we are!

October and November will find us in the States. November 1st we’ll be celebrating with daughter Anne and family, after visiting Hubby’s family in NYC. And a week later we’ll be with our son Vincenzo! What a special gift – considering the fact that we haven’t seen the family in 5 years. (Read my post: When the Way is Blocked.) This will be our best anniversary yet, and we’ll wish it would never end!

Mops and back ache

Between falling down our stairs and my osteoporosis, I’m afraid my back will never be the same. So I’m looking for remedies and solutions. First of all, at my final checkup doctor said everything is fine, but I have to start taking biannual shots for the osteoporosis and can’t lift more than 3kg (almost 7 pounds). All of this makes me thankful that nothing lasts forever. I’m looking forward to the time when I’ll get a new body!

Anyway, I have a new and ingenious spinning mop system that is operated by a foot pedal. So much easier on the back; I wish I’d discovered it years ago!

Going Places

A bad back makes traveling difficult. So I’ve gotten better pain medication for the overseas flights that I dread. Seeing family will be wonderful, but the travel not so much. Nor the inevitable goodbyes.

Saying arrivederci to loved ones is always difficult. Especially when you don’t know when you’ll see them again. But our family visits are one of the things we’d like to never end! Distance is hard. It brings a pain to the heart that we try to push away. But it never goes away. We just manage to push it into the background.

Life goes on and we count our blessings. Video calls and social media where we can see those dearly loved faces. We try to focus on the special little things that come each day. We count our daily blessings and refuse to think about what we don’t have or what we wish we had.

Oh yes, if it were up to me, the good things would never end. But none of us is wise enough to decide whether something should last or pass.

We cannot control time – neither slow it down nor speed it up. Children often try to rush it. When small, our son would run to the mirror on his birthday to see how much he had grown. He couldn’t wait to get big. (And at 6 feet 3 inches I’d say he succeeded.)

As we get older, sometimes we’d like to slow down the aging process with all its aches and pains. Here in Italy we have a saying: “Dopo la quarantina un malanno ogni mattina.” Which means, “After 40, a new disease every morning.” Most of us don’t really like gray hair and wrinkles either. Oh yes, we’d like it all to go away.

But this presents a dilemma. If aging stopped, we’d be stuck in this state. Little boys who would never know the joys of marriage and fatherhood. Old people who would be trapped in their infermities and immobility.

The time to say “arriverderci” to our loved ones will come – and we’ll wish we could freeze time before that moment arrives. But then neither we – nor our loved ones – would ever have the joy of the new blessings God has in store for us. We’d never see our grandchildren get married or be able to greet great grandchildren. We’d never know the new friends and adventures God has in store for us.

Yes indeed, time marches on and everything changes. And I say it again – it’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing that we’re not trapped in the past, still enduring all the hard things we’ve been through. And it’s a good thing that we can’t plan the future – what a mess we would make!

The former things were. They were ours to experience and they left many blessings and hard-earned lessons to cherish. But we can’t live in their shadow.

We have today and the choice to appreciate it. To gratefully accept each moment and rejoice in the good things. And to embrace things that may seem bad to us, knowing that in God’s hands they will bring wisdom and strength.

Time marches on. And we can be sure that good will come with it. Even from new aches, pains, and illnesses. Even from sad goodbyes. Because God has good things in store for us. He’s planning new things – and he will make a way for us through this wilderness of life.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:18-20

📷 Image credits: drink; others are mine