A few years ago I retired. My wife, Claire, and I sold our house and most of our belongings and moved to southern France. We lived in a vineyard village on the Orb River. It was beyond beautiful. The down side—only three of the 600 people in that village spoke English. After lots of struggle, isolation, bureaucratic red tape, and some homesickness, we chose to return to the States. We bought a home in Patagonia.
I imagined that my working days were over, but soon after we returned from France, I accepted a job as director of volunteer services at a hospice based in Tubac. It was just what I needed. It allows me to be paid for doing what I most enjoy—being engaged in people’s lives, loving, and being of service. I teach volunteers how to become compassionate companions to patients who are dying. It’s challenging. It calls me to open up—to change, to own that I have resistance/denial, to see the ways I hide from what I don’t want to know.
These patients are amazing—just regular folks who accept that they don’t have much time left. Many of them have looked death square in the eye, making peace with loss after loss after loss. Being with them has changed me; it has changed the volunteers too, as they watch new friends learning to “let go” and face the losses. It is humbling, sad, exhilarating. Mostly, it has taught me that I need to look at my own death, too, whether it happens in two years or twenty.
As I enter the later seasons of my life, I accept that wisdom is to see (really See) the beauty that is all around me and then to live (really Live) with appreciation for each breath I have left. And all this has caused me to become ridiculously happy—light as a feather. I feel drenched in appreciation, curiosity, and good times.
I find that it’s the little things that cause me to feel delight. Simple things. For example, one recent night we walked through the Nature Conservancy preserve up to the cemetery with our dog, Mika (whom we brought back as a “souvenir” from our French experiment). We got there in time to watch the sun go down. I took out a bottle of French brandy and two small glasses. Claire brought chips and goat cheese. We watched the colors dance and skate on the sky. We chatted while waiting for the moon to rise. Below we could hear the sounds of 18-wheelers making their way from Nogales, intermingled with the harmonic sounds of coyote choirs singing to each other across the highway.
It was fun just to chat about our week. Claire reminisced about daily trips to the post office, meeting friends from the town. I told her about my afternoon visit to the Gathering Grounds for coffee and pie a la mode; we sipped brandy, told tales of village life, made landscaping plans, and just sat in the nighttime stillness of the cemetery, where black birds nested. A chill came up, settling into our bones, then chasing us down the hill and home to our cozy fireplace. I love and appreciate the simplicity of our life here.
And I am grateful for this platform that is the Patagonia Regional Times. It’s like having a podium set up as a Speaker’s Corner in our town paper. I’ve been given an opportunity to “speak up.” This is weird for me, because I spent most of my life as a professional listener, seldom a speaker. So, I feel privileged and called to speak. My muse is a constant visitor. She’s on a mission. She whispers sweet vignettes of love, service, and appreciation. That’s the stuff of life that has meaning to me, and, as her humble servant, I stand before you.
So, in my run-on style, I give thanks to Inspiration and Source for the opportunity to honor, bless, and appreciate the challenge/joy in exploring a life well lived.