20/20 vision

There is a recurring memory I have which has haunted me these past few years. I am sitting in my grandmother's living room while she prepares to mend a pair of my grandfather's pants. She sits in a chair near the window where the light is best, unwinds some black thread from a spool, and works at threading the needle. Over and over again she attempts to get that thread through that tiny needle's eye, and finally in frustration I can still hear her voice say to me "Honey could you please do this for me? I just can't see as well as I used to!" Almost with a sense of triumph I run over and quickly quide the thread through the needle and pass it back to her with a smile. I remember being bemused by her inability to do such a simple task and that is the memory that haunts me now. Because now I can't thread a needle either.

Just the other day I struggled with the task in an attempt to mend a similar pair of pants. Over and over I put the needle in front of my face, squinting harder and harder trying to get that little hole in focus. And then hitting the needle with the thread over and over again, hoping against hope that I would get the right spot by chance because I knew I couldn't see it. I did finally manage to thread the thing but what an effort! And my grandmother's living room popped into my mind once again and guilt flooded me with regret. How could I have been so cockey as to think it was me rather than my youth that was so special?

We are all ignorant of the glory of youth when we are young. One of my favorite lines in my favorite movie is from the old holiday classic "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart. As a young man he flirts with Donna Reed out on the sidewalk of a neighbor's house and the elderly neighbor watches with disgust as Jimmy's character cannot bring himself to get up the nerve to kiss this pretty thing standing right in front of him. "Well go ahead and kiss her you dope" the old man mutters. And then this, the one I think about all the time "Aw, youth is wasted on the young!"

Why is it that as humans we never seem to fully appreciate the things we have until they are gone? Things as simple as the ability to thread a needle should to be cherished for what they are - gifts. For we have so many gifts we tend to take for granted. Throughout our lives. And we never see them for what they are until it is too late. How often in middle age have I realized that truth.