This moment in time...

I recently read a book (Gifts from Eykis by Wayne Dyer.) One thing I took away from the book is the importance of living in the moment. It does us no good to look in the past, for we cannot change it. It does us no good to worry about the future, because we have no control. What we have is THIS MOMENT IN TIME.

Today I waited on a customer. A fairly typical older man from Maine, he is a man of few words. I chatted with him a moment, then said, "I haven't seen your wife in a while, please tell her I said hello." He said, "I don't have a wife."

For a moment I froze... did I have the wrong man? Was I confused? But I knew I wasn't. I knew this couple and had known them for years. I remembered their old dog that had passed, I remembered them coming in both separately and together. He looked me right in the eye and I was struck with the reflection of deep sorrow I saw there. "She passed 10 months ago," he said.
"I am so sorry. That is sad. She was a very nice woman." I said. He held my stare, and said, in typical "old Maine guy" fashion. "It's awful lonely." And those three words seared me. I cannot imagine what my life would be without my sweet man. It would be "awful lonely."

Another reminder of the importance of living in, and enjoying THIS MOMENT IN TIME.