My senior year in high school, I was blessed by an opportunity to live with a good family. My father and mother had moved to another city the summer before. I was devastated. All my friends, the small town, that I had grown up in for the majority of my childhood years. All that was familiar, was very hard to let go. Especially before my senior year! I was an athlete, I knew my coach’s style, was comfortable with my teammates. I needed them and they needed me.
Graciously, the parents of one of my teammates offered their home. They invited me to live with them to complete my senior year. The coach really appreciated this, as I was his only Center for the basketball team. This new family treated me very well. I enjoyed the experience of new traditions and the daily routine with a new family. My friends mom was also a really amazing cook! Her parents were a multi-racial couple so I had the pleasure of tasting ethnic and traditional cuisines. Although Kimchi, is not something my palette cares for. My friend’s dad was a kind man. He was very intelligent and the type of soul that carried a warmth about him. He was a reserved and quite man but when he spoke his words always had depth. When he interacted and shared his perspectives, they always struck me. His name was Ed. He was an old soul and had provided well for his family. He had seen many things in his lifetime, served our country, suffered the loss of a spouse and he accomplished many great things. He would be defined as successful, in the way the world views it. But he was more than that, he was a rich man…rich in his faith for God, rich in his love for his family and rich in his generosity.
In the busyness, that was my senior year, with social events, basketball games and everything in between Ed would just casually say, “Youth is wasted on the young…” I recall hearing him say that at random many times to his daughter and I. I would listen and smile and go on about my studies or whatever I was focused on at that moment. I never really gave much thought to this expression of his.
Many years later, I still recall Ed, his memory and I can’t help but smile especially when I remember this statement he reiterated so often. In hindsight, I can see the truth in it now. I understand his words, as time is passing all too quickly now. In youth, many things are wasted, many things taken for granted, especially time. How comical it is, to realize how much time we had as youth or maybe I should say bittersweet in a nostalgic sense. So, lets make the most of today and start again tomorrow. Because you know, there is no more time to be wasted…
My heart needs to write… it is an outlet, often times pain is the fuel that gives me cause to write. It’s as if heartache is a propellant to inspire and to give me words…from ashes comes beauty. I know from pain comes wisdom, perspective and even out of it comes hope. Hope for that which is real, true and lasting. This world fosters such a shallowness in relationships today, how so many it seems are self centered and confused. Loyalty seems to be a thing of the past or maybe just for old souls… I’ve not understood nor wanted to feel the days pass that magnify how easily dear friends can become strangers. I’ve experienced losses of those whom I cherished and coldness of hearts that has given me pause to desire to lose hope at times…. hope in all types of relationships and a desire to fall into isolation. As solitude seems to be a safe place, a place of peace, a place where ones heart is not vulnerable to the flaws of humanity which inflict pain upon one another.
