I have always remembered the “riddle of the sphinx” from studying in high school Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus the King. I don’t know why that left such an impression on me but it did. In the story there was a monster that guarded an entrance and to enter you must solve the “riddle of the sphinx”. If you solved it you could enter the gate if you did not you were killed. No one had ever solved the riddle. The riddle went like this, “what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening”. Oedipus answered, “a man, a man crawls as a baby, walks upright as an adult and walks with a cane when he is old”. The monster was so mad that it hurled itself off a cliff and died and Oedipus was made King.
I am not walking with a cane but I am in that evening season of my life. There are many, many good things about this season: your children are grown, you are more financial secure, you are retired or looking at retirement, thus you have more free time and hopefully life lessons has taught you wisdom. I appreciate all these things but right now one of the parts of this season that sucks is our parents and some of our friends start having serious health issues.
From April of 2012 till February of 2013, I lost my step dad, who was like a father to me, my only sibling and my mother. Now our beloved Grannie, Rusty’s mom, is fighting for her life in an ICU. Right now, today, this season of life sucks! I know all the cliches and I intellectually understand “the circle of life. I know that Grannie loves the Lord and her future is secure but… this season of life right now SUCKS!
Linda