The Absurdity of Time

Andy and roommate, Jono

Andy, our 18 year old college freshman is home for fall break.  A five day reprieve from dorm life, dining hall grub and endless hours in the library.  I could hardly wait for my hairy son to come through our front door and now that he’s home, I’d like to lock him in his bedroom and tell him that his university has been put on orange alert and there’s no need to return to school, at least not for a few months.  Like he’d fall for that!  Smile.

Eastern Lacrosse

How can it be that this same boy who crawled into bed with his dad and me nearly every night until he was about nine years old now calls Doan Hall on Eastern University’s campus home, and   seems perfectly comfortable with that?  It doesn’t seem right that Andy takes the train into downtown Philadelphia with his new best friends as naturally as he drove around State College in his dad’s Jeep with his best friends at home.  His lacrosse team played in the Headstrong Tournament last weekend and my skin hurt from the pinching as I pondered that my baby was now a college athlete. Somehow while I was making lunches and beds, doing laundry and grocery shopping and holding down a full time ministry job, Andy grew up, and grew a mustache.  That’s the way it’s supposed to be ... well, at least the growing up part, not so sure about the growing lipstach part ... but it sure can catch a helicopter mom (you know, all the hovering) off guard and knock her off of her proverbial doting mother stool.  Sigh.  Andy stands on the brink of adulthood as a responsible, easy going and kind-hearted young man and his mom stands amazed.      

Ben and his Dad at Bethel

And then there’s Ben, our 21 year old college junior who won’t be home until Christmas break because Bethel University in the Twin Cities was the institution of choice for his higher ed. experience.  It’s just a painless 16-17 jaunt door-to-door, hardly even a road trip. Ugh. It’s not an option for Ben to come home on fall break, nor on a personal whim for that matter.  He’s cool with that.  After all, he is the same three year old kid who announced his move to Chicago when he turned 18 (we lived in Arizona at the time) where he planned to buy a truck and put a “mill-youn” bumper stickers on the back. How is it that the place he calls home is waaay up there in the North where the dialect requires the accent to always be on the “o” ... even words that don’t have an “o” ... and where groceries are carried home in a “beg.”  Not to mention sub-zero temps being the cozy winter norm. Somewhere between my first gray hair and menopause, Ben became a young man and left his mama, and his messy bedroom at home.  Ben is by society’s definition, an adult and a very happy, tenderhearted and respectful one at that.  His mom is by society’s definition, done raising him; finished, completed, as in, "it’s over." Ben moved out and word on the street is, his mom needs to move on.  Ouch.                                                Now there’s Jason, our 20 year old “borrowed” son who lives in Ben’s bedroom and unlike those I gave birth to, he gives me NO grief when asked to help but cheerfully does more that he’s asked to do while he’s workin’ two jobs at a time and mostly datin’ two girls at a time. Smile.  Jason is a hard-working, kind and respectful young man and every time he strolls down the stairs in dress shirt and tie, headed for work at the bank, I can’t help but wonder, when did THAT happen?

Jason and Madden

Last I remember he was a freshman in high school wildly bounding out to our van at 3:20 to say hello and tell me something about his day. He and Mama J, as he calls me, have become very close in the absence of his mom, and our own children and it seems time is fleeting as we share this short season as “mother and son.”  Jason is seizing this opportunity to get his feet firmly planted back on the ground while Mama J is trying to pick up the pieces from having the rug pulled out from under her tidy little mom-life. Sigh.                   Time is a funny thing.  Funny strange that is, not funny ha-ha. The absurdity is that we always thinks we have plenty of it until we look over our shoulder and realize after the fact, it’s gone.  Gone before we're ready to let go.  Gone before everything has been said and done.  Gone before enough memories have been made, not just captured in an album but stored away as snap shots that are keepsakes of the heart.  It’s odd how time seems to show up on everyone's face and hairline but never on our own. Smile.  Time is a funny thing. But for all of its absurdity, time is a gift.  Our most precious commodity. We must use it well. Cherish its contents. Be assured that the moment of now will never come again.  Can never be re-visited.  Will soon be a memory.  Time is marching on and we must keep in step. Time is a funny thing, not to be laughed at but to be reckoned with.  

The Loyalty of Dog named Hachi

Spellbound by a Hallmark special movie entitled, “Hachi; A Dog’s Tale” starring Richard Gere, I couldn’t get a grip on my emotions. Tears poured down my face more like a bathtub faucet than the trickle from a sink. The endearing story left an indelible mark on my heart about faithfulness. “Hachi; A Dog’s Tale” is Hallmark’s American adaptation of a true story that took place in Japan in the mid-1920’s about a loyal dog named Hachiko. Hachi, his Hollywood name, was an abandoned dog who was befriended by a college professor.  Hachi and the professor had a unique connection and each day enjoyed a joyful exchange of love and loyalty between them.  Hachi would wait at the train station every afternoon for his master’s return from school until one day his master got on the train and never returned. Hachi was thus, given to a new family.  Although his new family adored him, Hachi notoriously left them again and again by escaping and finding his way back to the professor’s old house where Hachi once lived with his master and his master’s wife. Over time, Hachi apparently realized that his master no longer lived at the house and thus, he went searching for him at the train station, faithfully returning to the exact spot outside the station every single day precisely when the train was due at the station, refusing to believe that his beloved master was not going to return.  This amazing dog doesn’t just wait for a few hours, days, weeks or even a few months for his master to show up on a train, all of which would be understandable and maybe even remarkable. Hachi dutifully sat and watched train after train after commuter train come into Shibuya Station for nine years after his master’s death, until His own death took him away. As each year turns into the next, Hachi becomes a regular part of the lives of those at the train station as well as those nearby in the town square. He was described as being like a permanent fixture at the train station each afternoon catching the attention of other commuters. Thus, they brought Hachi treats and food and he became the train station pet as he parked himself in the same spot ever day for nine years in hopes his beloved master would return.  He never did.



Hachi’s unyielding loyalty teaches lesson upon lesson upon life lesson. Today, a bronze statue of Hachiko sits in the exact spot where he waited all those years outside Shibuya station in Japan.  His statute serves as a permanent reminder to all of the residents in this Japanese community that Hachi, amazing canine that he proved to be, was the epitome of loyal devotion and love.  Hachi and his devotion captured my heart as I began to ponder how on earth we humans have grown to display less devotion and stictuivenss in relationships than a dog?  What should cause us shame and embarrassment is something that we wear as a badge of honor instead.  We proudly, or at least unashamedly wear personal disloyalty like an earned medal of accomplishment.  We trade in spouses for new models not on the basis of infidelity or life-altering addictions that threaten a family but on the basis of no longer liking the one we once promised “til death do us part” or some other superficial rationalization to be self-absorbed.  Parents give up on the children they prayed and longed for because that child becomes too much of a challenge to parent or discipline or because they seem to be in the way of the parents personal desires and goals ... or maybe that would that be selfish desires and goals. My heart felt that familiar dull pain as I pondered what ever happened to die hard loyalty like Hachi demonstrated?  We discard spouses and friends and families as if they were an old worn out pair of tennis shows that begs to be replaced.  

May Hachi, the dog tale, restore in us the honor of being faithful, known as one who will not give up believing in the one we love, against all odds.  May his tale cause us to hug the ones we love a little more often, extend grace to those we care about a little more generously and believe the best in the one we are tempted to give up on yet one more time.  And while you're at it, keep your eye out for the Hallmark version of Hachiko’s story of loyalty at Shibuya station.  When you find it, curl up in front of the television and take in this remarkable tale, make sure there is plenty of Kleenex nearby.