Classics

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled with the family down south to Pigeon Forge, Tenn. There was this huge car show. I am not kiding, there were easily more than 100,000 folks there. The last time we went down for this car show (several years ago) my dad backed our van into a pole, because he was too busy starring at some car (it was more than likely a '63 Chevy Impala SS). As soon as we got there this time my mom was constantly telling him to pay attention to the road, but I'm sure he didn't even hear her. He just kept saying, "Look at that one!" "Man, look at that engine!" "Beck, did you see that Chevy?" "There's a GTO, how much is it?" (Knowing there was no way he was buying one.)

I was amazed at how many people showed up to look at these classic cars. The majority of them were probably reliving the "good old days." That's all my folks kept saying: "Remember when I had that GTO?" or "That was just like the Chevy I had, only mine was red." My dad keep saying "Man I wishy I would have kept my Chevy."

It's funny how we never really know what we've got til it's gone. My parents said when they were younger a '63 Chevy was just a car, but now it's a classic. That just blows my mind. How something that was just a mean of transportation is now something you rarely want to drive. Then I began to think about life, my life, what are the things that I am possibly taking advantage of now that I could regret later? What or who is it in my life that I am not enjoying enough now?

I don't ever want to think of my life or the people in it as classics. Just like great friends and family, classics are cool to look at and to be around but expensive to repair and rebuild. Classics are just a more expensive version of what used to be and of what we wish could still be.

(If I did own a classic car, it would be the one in this picture.)

Lost

Things have been a little crazy lately (not that they aren't always crazy, just a little more than usual). For the past few weeks I've been through so many emotions. Laughing one moment and sobbing the next. My grandma died the last week of August. She was diagnosed as being in the last stages of Alzheimer's in May. Everytime I start to think about how hard it was for me to let her go, I think of my mom and how hard it had to be for her. My grandmother went from this stubborn, outspoken, loving woman (yes you can be all of these at the same time) to a quiet woman who didn't know anyone. There were days when I am not sure she even knew who she was.

She was lost, or at least that's what people would say. Even when she died people would call, come over and say how sorry they were for our loss. I am curious to know how that saying even got started, because I don't think I lost her. If anything I gained her for etenity. My grandma was not a Christian growing up or even in her adult life. But she gave her life to Christ in a hospital bed a short time before she was diagnosed in May.

Whenever I think of something I've lost, my mind immediately takes me to the last place I was when I had it and then my mind takes me to the fact I will never have it again. Think about it. Think of something you've lost. Growing up I was just a little squirt. I only weighed 17 pounds in kindergarten and 15 of that was probably my head! I was just this cute little bobble-head, kind of like Dora :) My mom used to lose me all the time in the store (well maybe I would get lost from my mom, I had a tendacy to get swallowed by the clothing racks). Anyways my point being as soon as I was out of my mom's sight, I could almost always hear her saying "She was just right here!" Then I would hear her say in shear panic,"What if someone took her?" When we lose something or someone, we instantly think about how they will no longer be around and how we will no longer be able to talk with them, laugh with them, cry with them or just love them.

I don't think of my grandma's death as me losing her, because now when I think of her I know she is happy. I know she knows who she is and all the people who love her. I know she's not sad and lonely. I know she's laughing and smiling constantly. I know she knows exactly where she is. I know she's waiting for me. I know she's not lost.