Because I Can

“How’s retirement?” -- A question heard often these days and one I love answering, for retirement rocks! “There’s a season for every activity under the heavens,” Solomon reflected, and I’m happy that I’ve lived long enough to enjoy this one. So when the question is followed by -- “How are you?”-- I can only say that I’m grateful.   

While eating Thanksgiving dinner many years ago, we knew there was something not quite right about the cornbread dressing that Ian’s mom was famous for making. Normally, we stuffed ourselves with the dressing; that year, however, we didn’t. The recipe handed down from Ian’s grandmother was traditional and salivated over and anticipated for many days, but that year it fell flat. Not bad, just different, and certainly not what we looked forward to every year. The excitement, after taking that first bite, fizzled.

We finally figured out that she had used the same can of sage every year for 35 years, and she had bought a new one. And the dressing? Well, it was good, but the seasoning wasn’t the same.  

Shortly after that she turned the dressing-making over to Ian. She helped, but it was now his baby, and if there were any complaints, he inherited those, too.

When I was a little girl, I taught my dolls and gave them homework. I’ve always been a teacher. But “there’s a time for everything,” and my time had come. The season had changed.    

Now, I’m happily doing everyday things that I was too exhausted to do before -- folding the laundry and making the bed and cleaning the refrigerator – and I’m doing them because I can.

Driving to Ian’s office with his lunch of turkey and avocado and strawberry yogurt on my lap, I was stopped by a friend who asked me what I was doing. When I told her that I was taking my husband his lunch, she asked me, “Why?” The only answer? Because I can!

There’s really no other reason besides I’m crazy about him. He didn’t ask me to do it (although he sure looks forward to it now) and he certainly didn’t expect me to do it (even though maybe now he does a little), but I do it because I can. Well, maybe part of me hopes he’ll see how great it is that his wife has retired and he’ll not want me to go back to work outside the home!  

But for now, I move plants around in the garden and browse through the library shelves and go with Ian to put up real estate signs, and I do these things with as much joy as I had when, a season ago, I moved the desks around my classroom and drove to the high school each day and went with teachers to AP conferences.

To do all we can do in each season of our lives is a good way to live, I think.  

Help us, Lord,

 to do the things we are able to do

 in the season you give us to do them

and to do them with a grateful heart. 

Amen.