Patient in Life and Impatient in Death - New in Grief? Grasping your worth.

I know you're impatient and I'm not going to make you wait. I am deeply sorry for your loss and I'm not going to leave you alone. I will be your patience that you cannot handle right now. If you need me, you start a conversation with me, just me and you, and I'll cradle your lost mind so you can gather your purpose, find yourself, and I will listen, patiently, for as long as it takes. Why? Because I have to.

How many people have you witnessed being impatient in your life? Yes, the mother in the grocery store with a crying child who is just tired, and she is too. Of course, the boss who just doesn't grasp what you go through. Why does that guy have to follow me so closely on the highway, he's making me really nervous. How many times have you needed a bandage to tend to the wound of impatience?

What about patience? Are cats patient? I honestly don't know how to answer that question. It's the curious nature of them that makes the question difficult to answer. Every now and then I will take a pencil and rest it on the coffee table with half of it hanging over the side. I show Abbey, my cat, what I'm doing as I balance it, carefully, so it does not fall off the edge. Then I will watch her as I take my hand away knowing that she will have to do something about that. The pencil could rest safely, and undisturbed in the middle of the coffee table for hours, even days, and it can rest there, patiently, until I need it. But here's the thing, I don't really like seeing a yellow pencil on my white coffee table with gray and silver decor that is pretty to look at. I had to train myself to put all the pens and pencils in the coffee table drawer so if I needed one, I could easily retrieve them. I have a little tray where they all rest, waiting. Sometimes it bugs me when I notice that a pen sits in the tray with the ink end pointing north. It doesn't feel right unless it points south. Why do things like that occupy my mind? It takes Abbey about 4 seconds until she decides the pencil should be on the floor. Once it's there she'll walk away, mission accomplished. But if I pick it up and put it back on the table with 1/2 of it hanging over the edge then she will knock it off onto the floor again. She doesn't walk away until she's confident that pencil won't be vulnerable anymore.

What am I talking about here? Is this about patience, impatience, clashing colors, a compass, some kind of high wire act like in a circus? Is it about making things right? What if I told you, it is about love? Who is the giver? It's not about when it matters. It's about if it matters. Empathy is like that. Wisdom is like this too. What do you think would happen if my cat Abbey just walked away and left that pencil hanging over the edge? It would clash with both the coffee table and the carpet. Where would we find peace? Now do you understand why I wrote the first paragraph the way I did? Still lost?

It's because you matter.

LostThomas