Catherine Nicolette
Our friend across the road was going away for the weekend and his mom declined to take his pet chameleon with them.
She argued - quite reasonably I thought - that as we spent so much time playing with the chameleon at her house, we Whittle children should babysit Sir Mortimer for the weekend.
"It'll only be two days," she told her son. "You can collect him on Monday."
So David called around and dropped Morty off at our place. I made sure to organise a time when Mom was not at home.
She tended to raise a dust about reptiles coming into the house. Over my few years I had learned that what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over.
I explained to the Lord that my brother and I were doing a simple act of charity; helping one of His little creatures.
I was also being charitable to Mom; her response to the insect and reptile kingdoms [screech, jump on chair, 'Get that OUT' ] made it imperative to shield her from the livestock that roamed our house.
I kept a rigorous tally at all times of any crickets, silkworms or reptiles within the walls.
Any lapse in judgement would result in my nerves being severely shaken at the maternal screeches.
Besides of which, I am fierce fond of Mom; I did not like to upset her unduly.
And there was no need to worry her about Morty at all.
Reptilian secrecy
I swore the kids to secrecy. For two days they were willing to look the other way.
They drove a hard bargain; a liberal bribe of liquorice allsorts, jelly beans and two Wilsons toffees each.
After Morty's arrival in Casa Whittle, we spent a most satisfactory half hour with him in the garden.
Clamped on my arm, he gently turned green next to the rosebushes.
Then my brother suggested we try to position Morty half in front of the leaves, half in front of the brown branch.
The theory was that Morty's front half would stay green, while his back half would turn brown.
Morty was enjoying himself, his miraculous eyes closing in bliss as the soft sun shimmered down.
After a while his color changed; he appeared somewhat piebald, but in amber and olive.
Siesta time
Eventually it was time to go indoors before we tired the poor pet out. Besides, Mom was on the way home, and we didn't want to have her on the war path.
As we neared the Dutch kitchen door, we bumped into our Sotho nanny.
She wailed as she saw Morty flick out his long tongue and catch a fly.
It took some persuading, but eventually she promised not to tell Mom; as long as she did not have to see Morty again.
After an uneventful weekend, David was due to collect Mort at half past seven in the morning.
As we waited next to the kitchen door, for some reason Mort took a liking to the yellow apron hanging on the door hook.
As we watched in awe, he clung to the cotton and slowly changed color.
Awaiting our applause, he was not disappointed; we were congratulating him when to our dismay Mom swept into the kitchen. "What are you kids still doing here? Get along to school, the pair of you," she directed.
My brother and I were riveted in horror as Mom turned and looked at the apron.
At that moment, Morty mercifully closed his eyes. And so it happened that Mom looked directly at Sir Mortimer the Second, ochre hued against her apron - and didn't see him.
Just then David knocked at the door. With agonized eye rolling I indicated to David where Morty was.
Well used to Mom, he neatly extricated the sunflower lizard.
Morty was thrilled to see his bonded friend, and crawled up his grey school jumper to nestle under his chin.
Stand not upon the order of your going
Never had children scuttled as fast out the door as we did.
"Well!" Mom exclaimed in perplexity, "Children! I'll never understand them. First I can't get you to go to school, then you all jam the door to get out!"
Slightly guilty and deeply relieved, we made good our escape out the front gate.
And thus it was that Sir Mortimer the Second returned home after enjoying his sojourn at ours . . .
LUKY;
ONE DAY A FRIEND WAS TELLING ME SHE HAD RECEIVED AN ANONYMOUS TELEPHONE CALL THE NIGHT BEFORE.
Living on her own on a farm, she had been watching a horror movie close to midnight when the phone rang and she lifted the receiver, mentally steeling herself for bad news - for what else would cause anyone to telephone her at this untimely hour?
But no such news awaited her. Instead, a voice at the other end of the wire informed her that the speaker had some highly unacceptable intentions in her regard.
"My first instinct was to yell at him, but I thought the better of it and simply put the phone down."
I consider the anonymous caller's behaviour to be far removed from acceptable.
Unknown caller
I once worked with a woman who was receiving similar phone calls from an unknown source. All she would hear would be heavy breathing.
She actually had to move house and have her phone number changed and unlisted.
It cost her a lot of money and it took its toll of her nerves. Seeing her at work on mornings after some of those calls, I'd be shocked at their debilitating effects.
"You feel so powerless and so afraid", was what she said.
Telephone call
When I came home after meeting my friend, my housekeeper informed me that my married daughter had called from home during her lunch hour.
I phoned her to find out if there was an emergency. She was mystified and said she hadn't tried to contact me.
I went back to my housekeeper. "In that case it must have been one of your other daughters", she said. "The caller didn't say anything but there was so much noise in the background that I thought it came from a family with babies."
We both shrugged and got on with our chores.
Is that you?
Watching television that evening, the phone rang again. All I heard was a catarrhal breathing.
"Hello!" I repeated.
I heard a little voice saying: "Hullo!" in answer. It sounded like my older granddaughter.
"Emma, is that you?" I asked, melting.
No reply beyond renewed catarrhal breathing.
"Hullo!" I called.
"Hullo!" I heard.
"Is it you, Mia? Surely not!"
Mia, my other granddaughter was not yet two years old at the time.
I was still holding on, wondering what was happening, when I heard my daughter's voice from far away.
"Mia! I told you you weren't allowed to pick up the phone!"
The owner of the catarrhal breath was telling her something about 'Oma' while I kept calling out from my side of the wire.
Then my daughter came on.
"Mom! Is that you? Did you phone us?"
"No I didn't. The phone rang but all I got was a string of hullos and a lot of heavy breathing."
My daughter burst out laughing.
"I tried to phone you earlier on but you didn't answer. Mia must have pressed the recall button. I'd better place the phone on top of the cupboard in case she rings China next!"
That was the explanation for the second anonymous phone call of the day and probably for the first one as well.
As for my friend, she has considerably more chutzpah than most women I know, and forewarned is forearmed.
The police set up a tap on her phone line. And she allowed her dogs the run of her home. If the anonymous caller had ventured to call, he would have found a warm reception awaiting him.
LUKY;
YEARS AGO, THE POSSIBLY APOCRYPHAL STORY USED TO BE TOLD ABOUT A VERY OUTSPOKEN CLERGYMAN WHO WAS CALLED AS AN EXPERT WITNESS AT A COURT CASE.
Asked a question by the prosecutor, he hesitated before starting to say: "I think . . ."
Quick as a flash, the prosecutor interspersed: "You are asked to answer a question, not to tell the court what you are thinking."
The witness turned to the magistrate and said: "Your honor, unlike the learned prosecutor, I have to think before I speak."
'VOTING MATTERS'. Indeed it does. The movie 'Suffragette' delves into the lives and historical circumstances of the women of Great Britain who yearned for the opportunity to exercise their civil rights as humans on this planet.
The very fact that today so many women are free to cast our vote is due to the sacrifice and dedication of those who have gone before us.
The luminous actors Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter, Carey Mulligan, Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Shiller and many others have brought this insightful film to life.
Why not take an evening out and go to watch a piece of living history unfold before your eyes?
Official Movie Trailer
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Suffragette+Movie+Trailer&Form=VQFRVP#view=detail&mid=80BA4BEC958A3BB85AEA80BA4BEC958A3BB85AEA
With thanks to bing.com/Suffragette Movie Trailer
LUKY
SOME YEARS AGO MY THEN HOMETOWN WAS IN THE NEWS ON ACCOUNT OF THE DESECRATION OF A GRAVE IN OUR CEMETERY. You may have heard about it.
We were of course shocked. The cemetery is a beautiful sunny place, far enough from the outskirts of the city to allow the sense of peace which reigns there to continue undisturbed.
When I heard about it I remembered my father in law's story, told to me in Ireland.
Lost in action
During an operation, my father in law received five bullets, one being shot at point blank range as he lay in a ditch.
He never forgot a dying comrade's pleas: "Oh don't, don't" as his friend was bayonetted to death.
Though still conscious [the Whittles take a lot of killing] he played possum until all had left the field. Thereafter my father in law managed to crawl to safety.
For safety's sake it had been given out that he had been killed and his mother had believed the news.
When the strife was over he walked into their bakery, confident of a great welcome.
His mother disappointed him by sinking into a deep faint. She thought he was a ghost.
A few years later he and his then fiancée went for a walk to the scene of the struggle, which was near a shrine to St Brigid.
The two of them knelt down to say a prayer.
Steady regard
As my father in law was praying he caught sight of a man, standing at the side of the ditch, who was regarding him steadily.
With a jolt he recognized his dead comrade.
On the way back, his fiancée asked him: "Who was that man near the ditch? Had you ever seen him before? Why did he stare at you like that?"
My father in law, without explaining, first took her to see the man who had led the operation and asked her to describe the man she had seen.
The friend had no difficulty in recognizing the dead comrade, even to the clothes he wore on the night he died.
Reburied
He went with them to see a priest, who found, upon investigation, that the man had somehow been buried in unhallowed ground.
So his remains were dug up and transferred to consecrated ground, after which he must have rested in peace, because they never saw his ghost again.
You may be sceptical about the story, but Ireland is a place where everything seems possible.
The least superstitious of people, I once declined the honour of visiting a supposedly haunted place on the chime of midnight.
In Ireland I found it easy to believe in ghosts.
Tampered memory
However, whether you believe in them or not, you cannot fail to recoil at the thought of the desecration of a grave.
I pity those who could stoop to desecrate a grave and tamper with the memory of someone who went before them on a road they too will one day follow, and this time without the moral support of those who helped them to open the very coffin of the dead woman.
May God forgive them this deed. And may the family of the dead person find it in their hearts, too, to forgive these people, whoever they may have been and whatever may have been their motivation.
As for me, I was rather looking forward to being buried in that peaceful sundrenched cemetery once my duty towards my family had been fulfilled.
Now the prospect doesn't look nearly as attractive.
Catherine Nicolette
Do I believe in ghosts? Well, to be truthful, I certainly didn't.
In my teens I was sure they were the product of either superstition or an overactive imagination.
All of which led me at nineteen years of age to be amused by some work colleagues who shakily asserted a ghost haunted our workplace.
In my youthful innocence, I couldn't speak for laughing. They fixed me with an earnest gaze, and assured me to be careful; ghosts really do exist.
"Things going bump in the night, eh?" I concluded the conversation. "Nah, I don't believe a word of it. There's no such thing as ghosts."
'Are you there?'
One memorable night shift, I happened to be alone in the very place which all had declared to be haunted.
I had quite happily assented to a shift in that area; all my colleagues declining the honour.
In the early hours, I thought I heard what sounded like a little gravel stone being thrown over my right shoulder to hit the ground with a brisk little clip.
This occurred each time I did a security round. A thorough survey of the ground showed no stones.
Indeed, there were no stones available on the soft flooring.
I tsked at myself for imagining the sound. However - imagination or no - the sound became more frequent as the night wore on.
Declare yourself
By five am I had had enough. I called out, "I don't believe in ghosts! So if there is anyone there, show yourself!" laughing derisively the while.
All I will say is that what occurred thereafter left me utterly shaken.
The next day I did not immediately return home; Instead, I went to early morning Mass and begged our local Parish priest to offer the Mass for a soul who was not at peace.
He did so, and I felt deeply comforted.
Pray for the souls in Purgatory
I have since become thoughtful about the whole issue of spirits who, for one reason or another, have found themselves unable to 'walk into the light'.
The Holy Church advises praying for souls in purgatory. This is a sensible practice.
The definition of the adjective 'purgatory' means having the quality of cleansing or purifying.
Some on earth whose spirits still continue unquiet due to their life issues may certainly find themselves unable to make the final crossing of the divide between earth to Heaven.
The final walk into the Hereafter is finalized once we are completely at peace.
And some spirits are still not yet fully at peace . . .
Final redemption
In the immortal words of Shakespeare's Hamlet, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of.
Let us rest secure that the God of Heaven and earth has all securely within His loving Hands, and will work towards the full redemption of each individual person in His eternal time.
In the meantime, don't bother taunting a ghost; it's not a good idea . . .
Luky
IN THE SEVENTIES MANY OF US CAMPAIGNED FOR A CLAUSE TO BE APPENDED TO PROPOSED ABORTION LEGISLATION. We collected signatures on a petition during the campaign.
The clause in question was to make provision that medical staff whose consciences would not allow them to work with abortions - if these were legalized - would be permitted to refuse to assist, without running the danger of losing their employment.
Worth it
Comfort-loving though I am, the rights of the unborn, so infinitely beautiful yet so pathetically vulnerable, are of paramount importance to my mind.
I would willingly work a lifetime to save one foetus from being destroyed. Hence I spent several days wearing out shoe leather while collecting signatures.
You'll think I'm saying this for effect, but it's a fact that at least three devout churchgoers got hot under the collar and packed me off with more firmness than tact.
Later a medical professional I approached smiled benevolently and said he'd first need to check with his confreres before he could decide what stand to take.
A pharmacist dillied and dallied and then, courteously but regretfully declined to sign.
You'd have thought I had asked them to protest against the proposed legislation as such, and by golly, if we'd been given half a chance, I'd willingly have done that too.
There was one delightful woman serving in a department store, who restored my faith in humanity. Having signed the form with a flourish, she turned to another assistant.
Loud and clear
"Sarie, would you agree that abortion is murder?" she called out, oblivious of the stares of passers-by. Mind you, I had not suggested any such thing.
"What's that word in Afrikaans?" inquired Sarie, who was opening some boxes.
"Vrugafdrywing", my new friend replied.
"Oh that! Yes, of course I do", Sarie said with conviction.
"Well, you'd better sign this then," my friend instructed, and that's how it came about that Sarie's was the last signature I collected.
Catherine Nicolette
Having grown up in a strictly religious family, you would have thought my upbringing would have been somewhat restrictive.
It is certainly true that I wasn't allowed to wear revealing clothing, ride on motorbikes, wear lipstick before sixteen or date until I was at least thirty three [according to Dad, that would be the age I would have enough sense to make good marriage choices].
However in matters of knowledge about life, my parents were remarkably liberal about giving us all the info on the birds and bees without a blush in sight.
When I was five and a half and my brother was four, he asked my mom where babies came from. She sat us down and told us the facts gently.
I was astounded. I had always thought adults were a bit odd, but This Took The Biscuit. However, I kept my very youthful counsel to myself.
At the end of the fact revealing mission, mom sat looking at us and asked, 'Do you have any questions?'
My brother replied, 'Yes.' She asked, 'Yes, dear, what is it?'
He answered, 'Can we go and play now?'
And so we did. But not until after she had asked me slightly anxiously [I was somewhat of a News of the World] not to tell all the other little girls in my class what she had told me.
Their mommies and daddies, Mom explained, would tell them in their own way, and in their own right time.
Which all led to the situation where I, in Sub A, had to listen to little fellow infant classers telling me, 'I was brought by the stork,' and another, 'I was found in the cabbage patch.'
I looked thoughtfully at the latter little lady,' Some cabbage', I found myself thinking, and gave a mental shake of the head.
Full knowledge was sometimes a difficult thing. I was already learning when to speak and when to hold my peace.
Slap in the face
When I was aged 14, another school companion asked me where babies came from. I thought she was joking. She wasn't.
She told me she had asked her mom where babies had come from, and her mother had slapped her through the face and called her, 'You dirty girl!'
I couldn't believe it. I wasn't enamoured at having to tell her the facts, but I thought someone had to.
If her parents weren't up to the task, how would she know to make sensible choices when the time came?
So I told her as best I could. When I had finished, she stared at me.
Then she said, 'I always knew there was something about you. Now I know what it is: you're a liar."
Something told me she hadn't liked my explanation. But so sad, too bad; at least she knew about life.
Biology Project
In Standard 9 we had to start a two year project to be handed in for marks towards our June matric exams.
For some reason I decided to do the project on the human reproductive systems.
I had completely forgotten about doing this project until four years ago, when I was visiting Mom.
I had looked through papers and albums she had kept when I came across my project. As I flipped through the pages, I couldn't believe how explicit the drawings I had made for the project were.
They would have been fine, except I distinctly remember approaching Dad asking him if I had done the drawings right.
He looked up from his newspaper, looked at the images over his glasses.
'Very nice, Nog, very nice', he murmured and went back to his paper.
Pain of abortion
When I was in high school, Mom took me to a talk a lady in her early sixties gave.
At that time, abortion was never mentioned in polite company, and a few eyebrows were raised in the parish at my being taken along.
However, Mom stoutly said, 'If she's old enough to bear a baby, she's old enough to know about abortion.'
So off we went to the talk. The gracious woman giving the talk had a silver swirl chignon and a sad expression in her eyes.
She spoke to us about an abortion she had as a young woman. After the termination, there had never been a day or night she had not regretted her decision.
In her sixties, the grief had become an endless nightmare for her.
She had decided to speak out about the constant and long-term suffering the abortion had caused her.
She spoke of the annual anniversary depression; the week before the date her daughter's birth had been due, she would begin with nightmares and tears.
On the day itself, she was never able to go to work, but would stay indoors, grieving.
After a further week the depression would eventually lift to the point she could go back to work.
At the end of the talk, she said, 'If only one of you decides not to get an abortion as a result of my sharing my experience, then I will consider that my daughter's death will not have been in vain.'
On the front doorstep, she looked at me - the youngest of the attendees - and said, 'Never a moment goes by that I don't wonder what my little girl would have looked like.'
As her eyes filled with tears, she concluded; 'I'm in my sixties. Only a few years more and then I can meet her when I go to the Father.'
That was just under forty years ago. I often think of that suffering and gracious lady.
By now she surely must be with the Father and her daughter. May God's loving Light shine on them both.
I never forget her, and the deep insight she gave me into abortion; instead of being a quick release from the life-changes pregnancy of necessity brings, it is a step into a never-ending nightmare.
And I, too, still after these many years collect signatures and try to pass the message of life along . . .
LUKY:
WE WERE STANDING IN A QUEUE, THIS WOMAN AND I, WAITING FOR A SHOP TO OPEN.
We struck up a little conversation, bored as we were, when she began to get fidgety.
Then she said, at intervals: "You know, I haven't got a servant; I haven't got all day to stand in this queue. Why don't they open the shop?"
"I live ten kilometres out of town. I came all this way and now it seems I've got to stand here all day. When are they going to open up?"
"Well now, I don't want to be funny but I do feel it's high time they opened up."
Not any more
To all these, I grunted noncommittally. I had my own reasons for wanting that shop to open soon, but watching that young woman I realised that I have come a long way in life.
Fifteen years ago that fretting biter of fingernails was me. Today I stand quietly, thinking my thoughts and philosophically bide my time until someone, if anyone, opens the shop.
Somebody did, in the end, but by then I had to go to my job, so I left my fuming friend to take my place and made other arrangements for my purchases.
Sudden understanding
You always think life has taught you nothing, until a situation like this occurs. Then suddenly you realise that experience and the passing years bring a sense of tolerance and longsuffering you never wanted to possess when you were younger.
That, at least, is how it can be.
Sometimes I receive a kind letter from a reader, and it always does me good. Once an old gentleman wrote to me and asked me most flatteringly: "How is it that you are so wise, Luky, at your relatively young age?"
I never let praise go to my head, because if bouquets be here, can brickbats be far behind; but I felt that if I really had picked up any wisdom, there must be a reason for it.
Any wisdom I may have achieved I ascribe to my confinements.
Tough at first
The first time I had a baby I thought the pain was unbearable. At one point I thought there was a scarlet fog of pain between my husband and the midwife, and me.
When I thought I couldn't stand any more, I yelled: "Say the rosary! Our Father Who art in Heaven . . ."
Suddenly the fog lifted, just in time for me to see my husband and the nurse, both wearing looks which combined compassion and amusement. Ten minutes later the baby was there, and I was laughing too.
Lone job
I banished my husband from subsequent confinements. "Go and look after our children", I said.
He kept popping in hopefully, and I kept feeling I'd let him down because the baby was not there yet.
"Go and look after our children", I would say yet again. "Tell them to say a prayer for their old ma."
I concentrated on going along with every pain, trying not to oppose it, and sure enough, I kept a clear head and a controlled expression. I didn't yell, I didn't get cross, I didn't cry, I didn't even pray. God knew what was happening to me and to all the millions of other mothers-to-be at that moment and He wouldn't leave us in the lurch.
There's a time to pray and a time to work. During my confinements I worked.
In time I have adopted this attitude in all my pursuits. When there is illness in the home especially, I find it helps not to barrage Our Lord with pleas.
People everywhere suffer, so why should my family and I be spared pain?
When my husband once seemed to be dying in the earlier years of our marriage, I couldn't bring myself to pray for his recovery. I knew so many widows, why should I be special?
I saw no need to keep reminding Our Lord about my responsibilities. Every hair on my head is counted, He knew me in my mother's womb and He doesn't make mistakes.
I just try to weather the storm, to bend like a branch with each gust of wind, but I don't ask for special favors.
Lots of widows
"You have such strong faith, Luky", a friend said one day when my husband was at his worst. "I'm sure you've always tried to live as a Christian. He will spare your husband."
Her husband was standing with her, looking awfully morose, as though to underscore her words.
"You should only meet the number of Christian widows I know", I said to her.
Her husband tried to keep a straight face, but after a while he laughed. A few weeks later both of them and both of us laughed together at the memory.
I don't want God to know me as a fair-weather friend. I'm a fan of Job's in the Old Testament: "The Lord gives, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Little rubs discounted
Coming back to the closed shop; compared to some of the hurdles I have been forced to take during my life, standing outside a shop for an hour for nothing will never feature.
Rather than allow myself to get upset at small difficulties, I try to conserve my energies for death which, when it arrives, and if it be not sudden, will call for the utmost concentration.
It will be the final race, requiring all the wisdom, patience, tolerance and long-suffering we have gathered during the trials of our lives.
It's not too early to start, training for that last race now, because no matter how difficult it will prove to be, great is the glory that awaits us at the end.
Catherine Nicolette
Well now, as my dad used to say. The besetting issue that plagued me during my early years was impatience. As a young child and teenager I struggled with impatience; I could wait for nothing.
Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be done now. And if it wasn't [as so often in life happens], I would be in a veritable fume of anxiety.
On my seventeenth birthday I remember kneeling down before my bed as I got up in the morning; I prayed to God for a miracle.
I wanted to be a saint in the shortest possible time, so I had quite reasonably worked out that if He granted me the gift of patience, it would quite nicely speed up my journey on my life's spiritual road.
"Dear Lord," I prayed, "Please make a miracle and grant me the gift of patience."
Prayer granted
It is a remarkable thing, but I don't feel I am the only one to experience rising from prayer with an inner conviction that God has granted our prayer.
I went about my days thereafter secure in the acquisition of the wondrous virtue of patience; which would arrive in short order.
It didn't. What did arrive, however, was a daily barrage of the most testing situations that drove my then meticulous soul to distraction.
I learned to put up with the difficulties, control my speech, and as the luminous Rumer Godden wrote in 'Kingfishers Catch Fire' [if I recall correctly from my teenage years] - I learned to 'thole'.
Thole is a simply lovely word; it means to endure something without complaint or resistance; to tolerate.
Many times when faced with an apparently insurmountable difficulty or suffering, I find myself murmuring,
'Just thole it'.
Déjà vu
Some time last year I found myself waiting outside a shop to open. A young lassie nearby in a tartan skirt was grumbling to all who passed, "When are they going to open this shop?" I found myself standing patiently waiting for the personnel to open it.
In the meantime, I was being endlessly amused at the smiles and gurgles of a baby in a pram, in chatting to his proud mom. Their little dachshund was prancing around the buggy; still a little pup, his energy and antics were cute.
Suddenly a sense of déjà vu hit me. I remembered reading Mom's words on learning patience along the road of life. And here I was, in a sense living the same experience years later in another country.
In that moment I realised that God had answered my youthful prayer by allowing me to face opportunities demanding exercise and practice of patience, as opposed to granting me instant patience.
And here I was, happily patient many years down the line. . .
Prayer for healing
Which brings me to my last point. Mom had told me she was not going to pray for Dad to be spared, because why should we be special?
I was not deeply thrilled at this philosophy, because my 11 year old take on this was that if Dad went to God, well that was God's Will.
HOWEVER: if Dad went to God, and it turned out he could have stayed a longer time one earth with us because we prayed to God and He decided to grant our prayer, wouldn't I be the one left with egg on my face?
So I prayed to God with all the fervour of my young soul that if it was His Will, would He let Dad be healed of his illness.
It turned out that God allowed Dad more time with us; I am sure that neither my mother's patient faith nor my heartfelt prayer went amiss.
Ageing process
As I move forward in the ageing process, I am amused to experience pressure to look more youthful than my age.
"Why don't you use Botox?" [a] because I don't want to - I'll bet it HURTS [b] because it's expensive and [c] I don't fancy the idea of injections near the main nerves of my face merely to feel better about myself. I already feel great, actually.
"Why don't you have a facelift?" My answer was, "Why? Do you think I look bad?" The person blushed and said, "Well, no. But wouldn't you like to look younger?"
To be truthful, no. I like having a look of gravitas about me. With some silver strands in my hair, a more matronly figure and a stately air about my walk [I'm rushing nowhere anymore], people tend to make way for me and listen to my words as if I know what I'm talking about.
My advancing years mean that I know a bit more about life, having lived so much of it. It also means that I know enough to know that in the final analysis, I know nothing.
Before the greatness and majestic infinity and wisdom of the Life of God, I am but a small spark.
Enjoy life
So, all things considered, let us enjoy life with the fruits of patience which enable us to live to the full our present moment, not always hurriedly looking towards the next hour for our contentment.
Let us enjoy our advancing years, secure in the knowledge that every day brings us one day nearer to that crossing from earth to heaven which will bring us, gloriously, face to Face with our Great God.
Finally, let us not be concerned at every tiny wrinkle we see on our face. I recently read the following beautiful story.
The luminous actor Sandra Bullock was speaking with her son; she apparently explained to him that her small eye creases were due to much laughter.
He replied to the effect that, 'That doesn't mean you're old. It means you're happy.'
The wisdom of children . . .
