Daily Reading - Calendar Books by Allen James' "From the Heart: prose and poetry from the depths of life"

Today's reading, March 22nd, comes from Allen James' "From the Heart: prose and poetry from the depths of life" entitled, "LIVE"; a poem written to celebrate life lived and more of what is to come:

LIVE

While life is ours, live.
Take a lo...ok around and embrace it:
One turns into ten, ten to twenty,
Twenty to forty and then,
Before we realize, we're looking for the end!

Those we love, we find on the outskirts of town,
A home built just for them.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner,
A crown made of paper for the winner.

We walk in to see old friends
Who no longer recognize who we are,
Yet proud of their new home;
Not knowing what lie beyond the swinging doors,
Not knowing that life evolves outside.

Live, for before we turn around,
The season has changed
And new life is spawning,
Beyond again, the doors of life.

LIVE.

As a young boy I was in the junior choir at my church. Every two weeks our choir leader, Miss Barbara, would pile us all in her 1965 convertible Ford Galaxy and Miss Juanita's 1965 convertible Ford Mustang and haul us down to the "rest home" as it was known to us and we would gather in the social hall and sing the old hymns residents would recall from days gone by. The men and women would sing along, smile and tap their feet as they remembered days past when their lives were full and active.

As the years progressed I would visit my Great Aunt Mae every week in her pristine room and learn about my grandfather, her brother, whom I had never got the chance to get to know; he had died when I was 2. Later I would visit my grandmother when this place became her home, listening to her words of wisdom.

This place they called "home" was to me a smelly, loud, sad place; but to them it was where life continued. It had become their prison; a place they would only leave when life was extinguished.

Where will we be when our lives begin to be too much for us to be able to handle? Where will we be placed when we become too much trouble for family members to care for? Although it's nice to know our society has institutions which are in place to care for us if that day comes for us, those institutions are not the happy, comfortable "homes" we hope to find ourselves.

Remaining active, caring about our health and cultivating relationships now may find our answer to these questions quite different from those of our elder family and friends. LIVE life as alert and conscious as humanly possible and you too can change your destiny. I know I'm certainly going to.

Keep looking up. : ) AJ