By Brenda Cannon Henley
I don’t really know if it is a woman thing or a man thing or perhaps a people thing, but we seem to spend so much of our time worrying about what happened in the past or what will happen in the future that we forget to enjoy today. I am guilty. I have found myself going through so many adjustments and changes since my husband died on Aug. 16, 2014 that little has seemed normal or “right” in my world. The first hours, days, and weeks were consumed with grief, planning, conducting funerals, traveling, and getting back home to the house that felt way too big, way too empty, and way too lonesome. I missed Ted at every turn.

Thank God for good friends who have checked on me from time to time, for invitations to various events and meals, and for a listening ear when I was engulfed in sorrow. My daughters and grandchildren have been wonderful, but I still have hours and hours when I think too much. Because I am a dreamer by nature, I think of what might have been, or what could have been. Ted and I had our lives all planned out to live happily ever after. We each had worked hard, put a little away, and intended to enjoy the bountiful Gulf Coast for the rest of our days. He so enjoyed watching the various ships make their way by our home on the Bolivar Roads going into the Ship Channel and on to ports far and near. He learned a lot about each of them, their cargo, crews, and where they had come from before hitting the Texas coast. We loved fishing in the Gulf, on the Intracoastal, or the bay. We had chosen places we planned to visit. And, we loved to cook together.

I had a couple of weeks when I felt practically immobile. I seemed not to have the energy and strength required to do the daily duties of living. I did not want to go anywhere, see anyone, or have to answer any more questions. I did not even want to talk. For those of you who know me well, you know that is a stretch for me not to have a story to tell, or an idea to share about a new story or plan, or something I was doing or someone I had met.

I share these thoughts with you because I have now found from experience that so many in our area have found themselves in the exact same place in their lives. I had two calls one afternoon last week where people had read an earlier article I had written and wanted to talk to me to see how I had overcome my loss. Our editor told us in staff meetings that the shelf life of newspapers or a printed column on the Internet is amazing and I now know that to be a fact. Each edition somehow makes it way to different people at different times and they really don’t care about the date. If the information is pertinent to them, they respond.

One of my goals in rebuilding my own life is to attempt to not borrow trouble from tomorrow or think too much about the past, but to live for today. That is a Bible principle I have long known and taught, but it had escaped my practical application. “Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34) I found myself worrying about paying the taxes on the property, about eventual home repairs, and about things that might happen to my automobile, and whether I would ever get to travel again. Now, I had lived alone in the past and have done all of these things, but somehow after being married and losing my husband, these things took on new energy. I vowed to put a stop to this foolish thinking.

I read a quote from the Dalai Lama XIV that was meaningful to me during this time. “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

Max Lucado wrote in Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear, “The key is this: Meet today’s problems with today’s strength. Don’t start tackling tomorrow’s problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow’s strength yet. You simply have enough for today.” Some days I have felt overwhelmed. I have wanted to call a friend and simply say, “I cannot do this any longer. Won’t you help me?”

Living this new life has been the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced, but I am doing it — One day at a time, and sometimes, one hour at a time. I have vowed anew to take only what I need for this one day and not to borrow from tomorrow. Of course, we all know we must plan and work and make arrangements to live. The verse does not give us a license to just live carefree and foolish. I say those nine words to myself often. “I will take what I need for today only.” It has become my mantra.

I recently re-read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. What a fun book. “That’s what I love about Aibileen,” Stockett wrote. “She can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they’ll fit right in your pocket.” I am keeping my most complicated things wrapped up small and simple and hoping they’ll fit right in my pocket.
[2-15-2016]

Brenda Cannon Henley can be reached at (409) 781-8788, at
[email protected], or by using the contact form below.

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