The Nature of Life
ERYN ROUSH

These days, everything is all business. I sit in traffic. I keep up with the other cars on I-85. I take calls, and I return emails. I desire success; I fear failure. And at the end of each week, I try to look back and find significance somewhere in the typos, memos, meetings and missed calls. I want to find that I have made a difference somehow, that I touched a life, or that I made at least one person smile. At this, I am failing miserably.
It is so easy to go through my routine oblivious to the people around me. The man next to me at the red light who is yelling into his cell phone, the clerk at my bank, the young girl who served my salad at lunch. Sometimes, even those close to me fall to the wayside: my mom, who bakes chocolate chip cookies that I eat but forget to say “Thank you” for; my grandfather who misses me and would like to hear my voice; my friend who has a broken heart and needs my support.
Please do not get me wrong, I am not completely inconsiderate. I get around to saying “Thank you,” and calling and supporting. I am just afraid that it may one day be too late. If there is one thing I understand most in life, it is that life is a vapor. I learned that a few years ago.
The last time that I saw my Nonnie, she was in a wheelchair and unable to speak – the results of a stroke. I remember standing in her bedroom while she dozed and talking to her about her collection of dolls and elephants. She had them all over her house, tucked in corners, displayed in cases. I knew that I would someday own many of them, and I wanted her to know that I remembered their stories. I left her that weekend believing that I would see her again very soon. The doctors planned to put her into therapy for speech and movement. Before they could even start, she passed away.
I often think of the things I wish she had known. How beautiful I thought her small hands were. How often I remind myself of her. That when I watch an I love Lucy episode, I can still feel the stubbly cushion of her couch under my legs and remember her chuckling beside me. I wish more than anything to have her back, to see her in her purple dress, behind my mom at my wedding.
This is the nature of life though, isn’t it? We have regrets we should learn from, behaviors we should change as a result. I should know better than to ever walk away from someone I love without telling them that I love them. I should know that tomorrow isn’t promised to me. Well, I have a thick head, and it takes me a while to learn these kinds of lessons.
I am not going to make a New Year’s resolution to “Seize the day.” I am not going to make promises and vows. I am simply going to love. I have so much love and so many people need love. I am going to love my job, even on the days I lack motivation. I am going to love my family with a fierceness I have never displayed. I am going to love my community, even when there is traffic. This should be the nature of life. Love, and have no regrets when each day is through. Love, and find that life really is beautiful, albeit, brief.