A God wink moment

Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash

You know, I have always loved people, but especially, older people.

My mother would tell me that even when she would take me to visit her elderly grandmother who had Alzheimers in the nursing home, I would happily run around and make friends with the other senior citizens. Clearly, I was never shy.

And, as a child, since I lived in the country, with no younger siblings or often neighborhood kids, after age 7, I befriended a great aunt who lived next door.

I loved hanging out with her and her husband. I remember that I could come along and visit ever few days and tell them the same jokes I had previously, and they would laugh - I could repeat them and they would forget and still laugh (or, at least that’s what they led on to me), and I was happy.

When a childhood friend’s grandmother was around their living around, I would park my butt at her side and listen to her stories.

When we visited another neighborhood lady, I also would listen attentively, enraptured by her lived experiences, realizing even at that age that she was walking, talking history.

So, I have always had an affection and affinity for older people.

Perhaps this is why I have befriended the two senior neighbors that lived below me and beside me, when I moved to Hopkinsville.

One made me a birthday cake the day after she met me because she knew that it would be my birthday and I would be away for it.

I told her after that, that she had a friend for life.

Since then, they have showered me with love and care, and fed me many delicious things like homemade yeast rolls and fried green tomatoes, and things that make me smile in how southern and traditional they are, like Vidalia onion casserole with cream of mushroom soup and a tater tot casserole, again with cream of mushroom soup.

I joke with them because I never grew up in the south and all of my grandparents are gone, but, still -

I found myself with a Mammaw and a Gamma, and before, I wouldn’t even have known what those words would have meant.

They sometimes say I ought to be hanging out with people my own age, but still -

I have always like older people.

I went to a bridal shower recently for a young friend I’ve made in Hop-town who does my hair, and tried to socialize, since I didn’t now anyone.

But the person I connected the most with was not a younger person, my age or close, but the bride-to-be’s grandmother. And we had fun talking and laughing.

I’ve heard this described of someone with an old soul - someone who enjoys the company of older people.

To be honest, these days, I usually find them to be the most engaged in conversation, because often times, younger people, my age or younger, seem preoccupied - by the constant stimuli of their phones or their kids, or perhaps they don’t have as much social anxiety or whatever else is going on in their internal landscape, so yes -

I prefer to chat with older people.

They make better conversation.

They move slower. They certainly listen better.

And now, as I am healing, both sober and with a calmed nervous system, after years of high-cortisol driven, high anxiety, partly from trauma, partly from mental illness, partly from alcohol abuse, and that vicious cycle, -

I keep saying to people that -

I can tell that I am healing because I move slower these days.

Do you know who also moves slow and enjoys company and when someone else is just present with them, spending time with them and talking to them?

Older people.

They seem to be a tonic for my wounded soul.

I will also say that there is nothing like cooking for and doing little treats for older women who are either widowed, don’t have a lot of of family around, have been low income, etc.

Because they appreciate it so much more than my ex ever did.

I feel truly appreciated.

The reciprocity of it has been lovely and healing for my soul.

I also find it an interesting -

There are moments - moments that are God-wink moments, I like to call them.

One of my beloved neighbors has told me about a woman who she helped to oversee her affairs and care for at the end of her life.

The woman - she said - at one point, said to my neighbor -

“I don’t know what I would do without you.”

The interesting thing is that my neighbor said that to me the other day as well, almost verbatim.

Now, I certainly hope I am sowing good seeds to have someone treat me well when I’m old and in the nursing home, especially since I don’t children and may not have a spouse.

But that’s not the point.

My most more important takeaway from that was this -

My kind-hearted neighbor did for another for years, and now that she is older and needs other things for her, has had someone emerge in her life who would do for her as she once did for another.

Maybe she has been blessed by her love and acts of service before.

I choose to believe this, because she has had some rough times in life and there are so many examples of when people don’t get their due - it’s nice when good things happen to people who have struggled.

But, I marvel at how many examples of that -

That God must see from Heaven - of people taking care of people -

It restores a tiny bit of faith for me in humanity.

And I like to believe that He has a hand in nudging people toward one another who could serve and bestow kindness on another, perhaps as they are aging and losing the abilities to do for themselves as they once did.

I also choose to believe that perhaps this is just a tiny glimpse of paradise, of eternity - a God wink moment, an appetizer for what it is to come, when it is said that -

“Well done, good and faithful servant…now come and enjoy your Master’s happiness.”

Matthew 25: 21