Time Left

 

.  Disclaimer: Views presented in this blog are those of Roger German.  They do not represent the views or opinions of the U.S. Peace Corps or the Government of the United States.

            Whatever your job or profession, it takes a while realize you don’t know all that much.  And then after a time, some of the fog clears, and you begin to see how things really work, and you develop some competency.  Then it’s time to go.

            I don’t do all that much with my time, though I would like to think otherwise.  This Peace Corps service is compressed in the extreme, with 3 months of training that reminds me mostly of the game we used to play as kids where we would spin around and around, then try to stand up, or walk a straight line.  We are told as we are spun out into our new life to slow down and just assimilate the culture for 3 to 6 months.   But most of us pick up our ball bats and try to hit a home run, or at least get on base, while we can barely balance without holding onto something.

            Then the dizziness abates and we look around and see that everything is at once familiar and strange, and we get our feet under us, we roll up our sleeves and hope we can make a difference.  What is familiar is that there is a right way to get things done, a wrong way, and then there is the way that works.  It’s why Vice-Grips were invented.  They are seldom the right tool, but they are often the only one. 

            So I’m more relaxed now even though I see how little of what I started will be finished on my watch; I have 6 months left.  At least that’s what my contract states.  But I’m more aware of time of late, and of how valuable that vague notion is.  I am enjoying my rice and beans, my 109-degree days and the company of Tracy, who besides doing the near impossible in a Mayan village is gently and patiently repairing a human heart.

            There is no premonition in the thought that I am not guaranteed 6 months more here in Belize, just some reminders of the brevity of life.  My friend T’s mother Betty Loos died last Saturday.  She was a woman with a generous laugh, though her life had not been easy.  She made a mouth-watering apple pie, and was kind enough to get out occasionally and sit through some of my gigs at coffee houses in Lincoln.  From time to time I would grab the guitar and play for her and her friends at the assisted living home where she stayed. 

            That same Saturday that Betty died, Brad Schumann, a friend and fellow contractor in Lincoln, also died, after a protracted battle with cancer.  He had maintained an amazing good humor and positive attitude about life as long as I knew him as he endured one treatment after another.

            Later that Saturday I was hosting a married couple at my home, new Peace Corps volunteers from upstate New York visiting for the weekend as part of training, and I received a call about 9:00 p.m. from Chepe the town foreman.  A family was at his house needing a cemetery plot, and he was not able to find his map of the cemetery, one we had laid out a few months prior.  I had a copy at my office. The family wanted to start digging the grave the next morning a 6 a.m. 

            Like I said, I’m a little more relaxed now and I told him I’d meet him in the morning, rather than walk the half hour into town that night.  So he picked me up at 5:45 a.m. and we drove to the cemetery, where the woman’s two brothers were standing by with shovels. 

            The woman who died was 30.  Pancreatic cancer; she lasted about 3 months.  Five kids, and a husband had abandoned her, according to one brother.  I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t really there at the cemetery that morning, holding a shovel to bury his sister.  He was somewhere else, distant, staring into an unknowable future.

            So that weekend was a tough one.  Got me to thinking about time, and the immutable fact that it is the only thing any of us have of any value, and that it would be a good thing to make the most of what I have.

Comments

[thodson]

Whew! A bit tough to see the screen through the mist...

TIME and relationships, time FOR relationships, and when our time is up, I believe all that's left is relationship.

"sweetest thing I know of is spending time with you"...thanks

[C]

Beautifully written. Looks to me you have all the right tools for the job, whether you finish those of conCrete or not. Plus the hero and the heroine exit stage Belize. Well done all around.

[Jim Echternacht]

Just finished up turning a wrench on the Jetski and thought I would read up on Rogie.
The longer I am on this earth the more amazed I am at what a genuine great person you are.
Thanks for the read.

[terry loos]

It appears all we have and are is on loan;and yet we spend most of our time thinking about ounership. Too soon old too late smart. Love compels us to remember our blessings;and share them with others.thanks for the songs to my mother.t