So I have a friend that recently lost his father. When I was first informed of what happened, I was told that it occurred suddenly and unexpectedly. That wasn’t exactly what happened although it did happen relatively quickly. He went to the doctor and was diagnosed with cancer having only months to live. A month later, he was gone.
As I sat in the service and listened to his son and daughter talk about their relationship with him, I learned that there were some relationships he had that were strained in a big way. They were thankful, however, that he had enough time to restore some of those relationships. They described him as an outgoing, funny person who had quite a stubbornness to him, which led to many disagreements, hurt feelings, and ultimately, separation. There was a sense of deep hurt that so much time was lost and so many years that went by without the people they love being in their lives.
And it certainly caused some self-reflection and created quite a conundrum in how I move forward. To me, they hit the key word about life, and that is: time. For me, time has always been the most precious commodity, even more so than money. You can gain money just as easily (maybe not just as easily) as you can lose it, but when you lose those seconds, those moments, those weeks, months and years, they’re never coming back. And perhaps I take the concept of time too seriously, but I vividly remember once when I was teaching, I told the group,
“Time is very important to me, so if I’m spending time with you, you are quite important to me.”
Now maybe I shouldn’t have said that to a group, because I’m sure there were people there with whom I didn’t spend much time, which probably led them to believe I didn’t see them as important.
It just got me to thinking about how I’ve dealt with things in the past, but really unsure on how I could do things any differently. Sitting there in that church, I thought of two cases wherein my time wasn’t taken into consideration and how I responded.
The first regards my older brother. Growing up, we were close, with me feeling closer to him because I was the younger one and looked up to him, but he was always cool in that we did a lot of things together. Even as we became adults, we were close and spent a lot of time together , but as the years went by, we drifted apart. And then it came to a point where we would only see each other on birthdays and holidays. I did try to remedy that, though, and there were two times I invited him and his wife over to spend some time with Carol and me.
Both times, he cancelled at the last minute. The second time, he called on the day he was supposed to come over and he said,
“Sorry dude, that’s twice. I guess one more and I’m out.”
I responded by saying,
“This ain’t baseball. You’re already out.”
I said that jokingly and we had a good laugh about it, but there was certainly some truth in what I said. Now that may seem rather harsh, and maybe it is, but there’s something to that. My thought was that he knows me well enough to know that when it comes to my time, I really don’t like being blown off. But it wasn’t anger that I felt so much, it was hurt, because I realized something. As I mentioned, we would see each other during birthdays and holidays which equates to about every three months, so I would chat with him often. During those chats, I would hear of the many times he’d hang out with these friends and those friends and other friends.
And the second time he blew me off, I realized what it was.
I got it. I understood.
It just wasn’t that important to him to spend time with me.
Carol and I used to like to go to Downtown Disney, and there were many times where we’d invite him and his wife, and it wouldn’t happen. They always had something else they were doing.
After that second cancellation, I never asked again. Not because I didn’t want to spend time with him, but because I understood. And I was right in my assessment, because he never followed up to try and reschedule.
It just wasn’t that important to him.
The second case regards a time I was supposed to meet up with someone. The day and time comes, and I head over to the place where we’re going to meet and then I wait........... And then I wait some more........................ After a bit, I send a text saying that I’m here. A few minutes pass, and then I get a call from him. He apologizes because he forgot to call me to cancel. So here I am, sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for someone who has no intention of showing up. Was I upset? Yes, because not only did I make the time to meet him, but I made the effort to go to a place that was nearer to him. Was I hurt? Not really. He didn’t know me well enough to know that I put that much emphasis on time.
But, the result ended up the same way as with my brother, and it’s for the same reason. Because after he blew me off, I would have thought he would reach out to me to reschedule. He didn’t. He knew I wanted to get together, he knew I made the time and effort, and yet, after cancelling, by not trying to reconnect, he made it quite clear that it wasn’t important to him.
Two cases: one that involved hurt and the other involving anger, both ending the same way. Like most, if not all people, I can get over anger a heck of a lot quicker than I do hurt, but it was neither of those emotions at play that caused the same result.
It wasn’t because I was hurt.
It wasn’t because I was angry.
It was because I understood that it just wasn’t that important to them. And once you realize that, it makes it easier to let go, no matter how much I’d like it to be different.
You might think that this is a quick trigger, and you may be right to some extent. I realize that when it comes to relationships, I quite often put a period where there should be a comma. Even though I hate when the time comes to use that period, because I really don’t want things to end, but my experience has shown me what it’s like when I use a comma.
The best way to describe how it is after a comma is by asking you to visualize someone holding on to your leg when you’re trying to walk.
You see it.
That person is lying on the ground, arms wrapped around your leg as you’re dragging them across the floor as you’re trying to walk. I’m not saying that’s how it is, but it’s certainly feels like I’m being dragged across the floor.
And maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You know what it’s like when someone’s just not interested in spending time with you.
But yet, I wondered about regret over not spending time with people I care about. Time is very important to me. The truth is, if I’ve made time for a person, that person means something to me, and if I’ve spent a lot of time with someone, then that person means more to me that I can adequately express. And so it’s really not easy to spend time with someone and watch them drift out of your life, but really, what do you do?
And so I wonder, going forward, how to proceed.
Perhaps I’m placing unrealistic expectations on others by thinking they feel the same way about time as I do. Perhaps I jump to too many conclusions. Or perhaps I’m absolutely right. It certainly seems that way in some cases where I’ve stopped trying to make the time and the other doesn’t even try once. And that’s what makes it difficult.
So I sat there in that church, listening to my friend and his family talking about all the lost time, and tears rolled down my face. I was feeling their pain as they faced a future without their father, brother, uncle, husband and friend, but I was also feeling the lost time in my life, feeling the seconds, the moments, the months and years slipping away. Time that I’ll never get back, lost opportunities to spend with those who have a piece of my heart. In this service, I felt the pain of a family that faces a reality that can’t be undone, and the pain of facing a future that possibly can’t be unchanged.