God speaking

On Monday I bought a house from a sweet elderly couple.  At closing, they started telling me about how they moved in the 60s, when their kids were 1,3,5 and 7, and how they had lived their whole lives there, replete with all the memories.  Selling the house to us was very hard, because they were acknowledging the end of... their lives, almost.  The husband is sick and knows he doesn't have much longer, and he wants to make sure his wife gets settled in a place where she will be taken care of.  It was so sad, and not too uncommon a story for my line of work.  When I'm faced with these things, I inevitably hit my "What's the point of this life?" mental soundtrack, and it leaves me feeling hollow and terrified that I'm not doing it right.  And also that it's inevitable.  We get old, our kids grow up, our jobs go away, we see our loved ones die, and then we die.  This is the sadness inside of me.  This is also why some many people turn to religion and faith - because if you believe this is a useful layover on the way to somewhere else, and you get preferential treatment if you live it correctly, then this sadness goes away.  I like to think of myself as a faith-filled person, but I'm so focused on the now that the After idea hasn't really sunk in.  I'm working on it.

Anyway.  There is a happy ending to this depressing blog, I promise.  Or maybe just a hopeful ending.  This morning I started my day with prayer, and I was reflecting on that couple and my sadness.  Really wallowing in it.  And as I sat there a little light bloomed in my brain and that light said, "The point is that they got to live to 80 something, and see their kids grow, and run their careers, and have friends for decades and decades.  The point is that they didn't die at 20 or 30 or 40 and miss those things."  It brought me some peace.  I still don't know what to make of this day to day, and whether I'm doing it right, but I hope I get many years to figure it out.