What Matters Most

Some say that what matters is right in front of our eyes. No. My steaming cup of morning coffee is not what matters most, well, perhaps at this moment, but what really matters, I maintain, is not the future or even the present, but the past. Why? When I watch the elderly, I see a far away look in their eyes and I know they are not looking at what lies before them but what is somewhere else. Something distant. I suspect it is some memory or recollection of note that pulls their attention from this world, into what was, not what is. Long ago, when caring for two very old, very dear folks, I recall them in their nineties, sitting in their living room on furniture that was almost as old as they,  holding photo albums in their laps with little dishes of various pills and glasses of water beside them, speaking in their frail tones about the pictures they were looking at.  Small piles of these books of memoirs were stacked at their feet. The two laughed together and their eyes sparkled as they peered across the room at one another with youthful faces shining through the wrinkles and liver spots and white hair, what there was of it. The old couple was recalling events of long ago, ones that they had shared in their over sixty-year marriage. When I peeked unseen into their room and saw their joy in recalling  mutual times, I knew it was a private moment and backed away. They lived only a short time later, one "going" after the other, as often happens. What this scene taught me is that what we do in the present, is vitally important. It will become immediately, the past and matters because it can't be undone. If two old people who know they have little time to live, take joy in the simple pleasure of their memories, what we do now must be the key. All of our endeavors to make life better by working at jobs we secretly loathe and putting up with people we can't abide and living life-styles that are not who we are, comes down to an ending whether we like to think of it or not and an accounting total of what our lives added up to. We'll be asking: was it all worth it?  It seems logical to me that we grab the moment that makes us happy and cling firmly to it. Sure, we have to work to survive and often that means toleration to a maximum degree, but in the end, if it has to done, we try to find something in that place that has meaning. If it doesn't, we strive to put meaning into it and if that doesn't work, we move on and continue the quest. The whole matter of happiness appears to be that search within ourselves to achieve it rather than grieve it. I like to think about this old couple nearing their final days and finding happiness not in their present circumstances but about what really mattered in  their long lives. They knew hard work and loss and achievement and disappointment: all that, but it wasn't what they had or didn't have, not about things, but about people and what they did amongst those people to find true satisfaction and happiness that would carry them along until their lives ended.