Thoughts On A Given Day

I do not have a long list of grandparents with whom I had a close relationship. There was in reality only one. That was my grandmother on my mother’s side, Rachel Eller Edmonds Gunter, or Momma Rachel, as we all called her. I was close with her. I do not recall a time when I ever called her on the phone that she was not able to immediately recognize my voice and call me by name. I suspect that the same could be said of all of her children and grandchildren. She was a strong, remarkable, and loving woman with a sound mind who raised a wonderful family during difficult times, and I have never heard a single disparaging comment directed toward her or toward her memory. I was in Iraq when her one hundredth birthday came, and I was still in Iraq shortly thereafter when she passed away. Sadly, I missed both occasions, and I miss her.

My father’s mother died while he was young, so I never knew her. I did know two great grandmothers – Momma Wilson, my father’s grandmother, who raised him like a son, and Granny Eller, my mother’s grandmother. I knew them both, but I never had a close relationship with either of them as I did with Momma Rachel. I lived too distant from them, and my time for visits was too short while they lived. I never knew a grandfather at all. My mother’s father died when she was very young. Neither of us had the opportunity to know him. My father’s father abandoned him when he was very young, and I never knew him either. He did come back into my father’s life while I was in High School, but, other than a five dollar bill that he sent to me on the occasion of my High School graduation, we never had any contact before he died.

Given my lack of grandparent relationships I found myself wondering recently about a song that I wrote some years ago that I will share here. I call it Time Will Play Tricks On A Young Man.

 

I look at the face in the bathroom mirror and see it’s still getting older each day.

The eyes look back with understanding, and maybe a little dismay.

There’s touches of gray up over the temples, and creases that are worn deep with care.

There’s salt and pepper in the new morning stubble, and wrinkles that didn’t used to be there.

Time will play tricks on a young man, as he looks in the mirror each day.

He’ll wake up one morning and realize he’s seeing his grandfather’s face.

And I’d like to think it’s illusion, but I know the truth all too well.

You can’t stop the aging once it’s begun. There ain’t no magical spell.

Yes, time will play tricks on a young man, and leave him too soon old and gray.

But the young man inside of him still lives right on, and struggles to face each new day.

My hair used to be thick and wavy, but now it’s just a bit thinner up top.

My belly used to be strong and firm. Now it looks a bit more like a pot.

My nose is lately looking too long for my face – like that wicked old witch of the west.

My whole body’s sagging, but I can’t change a thing, so I guess I’ll just shave and get dressed.

Time will play tricks on a young man, as he looks in the mirror each day.

He’ll wake up one morning and realize he’s seeing his grandfather’s face.

And I’d like to think it’s illusion, but I know the truth all too well.

You can’t stop the aging once it’s begun. There ain’t no magical spell.

Yes, time will play tricks on a young man, and leave him too soon old and gray.

But the young man inside of him still lives right on, and struggles to face each new day.

 

As I mentioned, these are the words to a song I wrote years ago, nearly twenty years ago, I believe. To the best of my recollection I’ve never shared it with anyone before. I’ve certainly never sung it to anyone but myself. But, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, it’s a slow, wailing, country sort of song in D flat.

I am forced to ask myself a question. If I never knew a grandfather, what makes me think it’s my grandfather’s face that I see when I look in the mirror now. Obviously, it was written long enough ago that I know it was pure speculation. I assumed it would be my grandfather’s face I would be looking into as I got older. I assumed the creases, wrinkles, and gray hair would be there. Amazingly enough, they are, along with all the other signs of aging that I anticipated in the lyrics. But who’s face is it that I am seeing.

It is, obviously, my face, but it is not the face of that young teenager I was when I was first entering manhood. You now that guy. He’s somewhere between sixteen and nineteen, knows far more than his parents ever had the opportunity to learn, has a firm grasp on what is “cool” and what is definitely not,

and has absolutely no idea what it takes to accomplish something in life or where that life will lead him. He does believe that God will be with him in that walk through life, because that is what he has been taught in church and at home, but he has yet to allow God to actually work in his life. He is still in the “molding phase,” so to speak.

Now, when I look at my face in the bathroom mirror, I do see all those signs of aging that I foreshadowed so many years ago in the song, but I also see a man who has learned just how much wisdom his parents had then, and how wishes he could be more like them now. I see the face of a man who has learned that being cool really isn’t that important after all. I see a man who has been down enough roads to know what it is like to allow God to work in his life and what it is like to fall short of what he had hoped to become, because he has not allowed God to work in his life enough. I suspect there will always be a tension in that respect. I also see a man who has been down many paths in life and has learned what it is like not to fear, because even though he walks through the valley of the shadow of death, God is always with him.

As the years pass, my concept of what constitutes old gets further and further along in years. It’s hardest, I suppose, to think young and feel old, but that is another entirely different discussion. I hope that there are miles and years ahead of me, but we have no guarantees for tomorrow. I hope that when I look at my face in the bathroom mirror I see the face of a man who has learned to walk with God today, because there is no certainty of tomorrow.

 

1 Corinthians 13:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

Psalm 23:1-4

New King James Version (NKJV)

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. ² He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. ³ He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. ⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

James 4:13-17

New International Version (NIV)

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.