‘This is not how it was supposed to go’ she reflected.

For years, they hustled, working to string together enough gigs to pay the bills.  Their creativity was only matched by their work ethic.  They faced each challenge, however significant and however relentless, head on.  Their kids are adults with families of their own.  Retirement for them meant choosing when to work and how much.  It meant spending time with kids, grandkids and in their RV.

Until…
and then…
and now.

The test results came back positive.  The natural disaster hit.  The kids moved back in — with their kids.  Something, or everything it seemed shifted.  She sounded tired; not the tired that comes from life at a certain age, but the kind of tired that comes at the end of a long, long battle.  It was the kind of tired that you hear when people grow weary of deferring hope.  They had rebuilt but didn’t have the energy to recreate.   They made it through another biopsy with the certainty that nothing was certain.

This wasn’t what they imagined. This is not the life they had saved for, invested in or imagined when married at 22.  Had they done something wrong?  Was God punishing them?

Then she paused.  It was not a pause of deference or defeat: that has a distinct sound of energy leaving the body.  Neither was it the sound of reflection or of mustering: there is a distinct sound of sucking in, grasping for some energy to provide reserves that don’t exist.  I think I heard acceptance:  the sound of settling into; the sound of returning to the present, regardless of the gap between imagined and real.  The sadness was real.  The resonance in her voice was flat, but today she chose to be present to me and those around her, just as she’d done every day of her life.  Her story proved that nothing was certain and that life was hard.  While it’s almost certain that comparing miseries to determine who has it worst is unproductive in every way, some stories are indeed more difficult.  She hurt: physically, financially, relationally, emotionally, spiritually. She’ll tell you that the days are hard and that some days are harder.  She’ll tell you she hurts. She’ll tell you that this is not how she thought it would go.

What happens when it doesn’t turn out like it’s supposed to?  How do you respond?  She responds by praying for her daily bread: that provision to get her through the day.  For years, ‘daily bread’ was financial, physical, educational, but today it was deeper, simpler.

She prays for gratitude for yesterday, presence for today and hope for tomorrow.

She responds by giving it away: whatever is needed to whomever needs it.

She responds by leaning into the day, embracing it.

She responds by choosing hope, however much it hurts.

This thought is about hope, not about how to respond to the gap between imagine and real, that’s for another day.

Yesterday, gratitude. Today, hope. Tomorrow, well, let’s talk about that tomorrow.