And She Wrote…🌄
This is my Dad, Bob. He’s 81 years old. This photo has a lot to say about who he is now, and some about who he has always been. If you notice, on his walker, he has bags tied together that he has “rigged” or engineered to be able to put his coat on as he walks. He told me today that when my brother took him somewhere he tried to untie the bags quickly, “I think he was embarrassed,” he said as he chuckled “but I needed something flexible,” he shrugged. You’d have to know my Dad to understand this isn’t a sad story just my Dad being my Dad - a funny guy like he’s always been...we both had a good laugh. His bags don’t bother me though, they make me smile. He has always been a pro at finding a solution with whatever he has in front of him. His favorite childhood toy, an erector set (that most children would not consider a toy today) is in my garage. I guess he has been tinkering with things almost as long as he’s been around.
As you can probably tell by the picture, Dad isn’t currently the fastest guy in town. This has been a challenging evolution over the past 8 years of his life. Eight years ago he fell and had a spinal injury that resulted in him needing a walker. He went from working harder than men half his age, to not being able to walk without assistance. It has been a hard adjustment for him, a man who was a collegiate and professional athlete; a man who only viewed himself on one thing - how hard he could work; a man who could literally outwork men in their 20’s when he was 50.
Today I went with Dad to a doctors appointment. There are some things you have to know if you’re going to accompany him somewhere. First of all, you better be ready to go when he starts moving because he is not waiting on you. I am laughing as I’m writing this, but truthfully it can be a little stressful at times. He is either making moves so fast I can barely make sure a chair is behind him (🤦🏻♀️) or he is moving pretty slow as he makes his way across long distances. I’m telling ya’ll the way he moves his walker is not natural at all. He kinda drags it along, managing some how to make it look like the walker does not belong to him and he barely knows how to use it. I try not to look behind him often because he is pretty good at leaving a mark (literally) everywhere he goes. 😅
When I was walking next to him this afternoon, on one of these long open stretches, I had to really slow down my pace to stay next to him. As I just mentioned, I can’t afford to get too far away from him because he’ll make some quick movement and next thing I know he’s teetering his way in some direction that is stressing me out. You should see the way he‘ll chuck his walker on the pavement when he’s coming off a sidewalk, and from outside appearances, just kinda hop and hope both feet hit the ground…I’m shaking my head just thinking about this..lol. All jokes aside, he’s fallen three times this year (even though I heard him tell the nurse when she asked if he’d had any falls in the past year, “ohhhh, just a couple.”) so staying at his pace is really important. As I was walking next to him, and having to be realllly intentional to slow my pace, I started to feel the urge to hurry up, and then I remembered something I heard once. “God moves at the pace of old people.”
“God moves at the pace of old people.”
I don’t remember where I heard this, but it has always stuck with me, and I believe it is true. When I reflect on my life and how patiently the Lord has been with me, I don’t know how I could believe anything else.
I have another experience about hurry I’d like to share with you tomorrow, but for now, I’ll leave you with a thought. What if we all slowed our pace to walk next to someone a little slower than us? Who knows…if we do, we might just find ourselves walking at God’s pace.
Pacing to the one next to us. What a beautiful picture you have created through your writing about your Dad. Thank you for your encouragement today!
I am going to try to walk like old people today.