Geezer Gripes and Teens' Advice

I was disappointed to learn from the April church conference that "Hang in there" isn't a gospel principle.
I was hoping it was.
Because I can do a pretty "good grin and bear it" sometimes.
But apparently endure to the end doesn't mean hanging and grinning.
Enduring means more.
Like trying, accomplishing, learning, progressing, making a contribution maybe.
Even when it hurts.
Those things might be part of enduring.
Which makes it harder.

You see the passing years have left their mark on me, as it has on some of the others who live around here.
Though in my case, not physically empowering or attractive ones.
Which is another geezer gripe by the way.
Why does my husband continue to be attractive while I continue to be just old? He may be feeble but he still looks good. At least to me. Is that fair?
Have you noticed that men often get better-looking with age?  Who thought of that, I'd like to know?
I'll bet it was a man.

But I digress.
My mind does that a lot now. Wandering off down Apple Lane, next to a creek in spring where yellow columbines grow wild. There it goes again.

Anyway.

The other day I was cleaning a mirror with my handy dandy, swiffee, "you can reach it from a wheelchair thingy" when I noticed my reflection.
I was shocked at who was looking back at me.
Yes, time indeed marches on.
And sometimes right across your face too.
And over your hair, since you stopped coloring, and down your back, and into your knees and hips.
Now the scriptural reference to "feeble knees and hands that hang down" has a whole new meaning for me.
Old hands have young muscle memory you see.
And that's a dirty trick too.
Because this means that they automatically remember to grip items such as a new bottle of soy sauce with the proper amount of strength to hold it and put it in the cupboard. However, now, those hands being old and forgetful, the grip seems to stop automatically just as the pain from creaky joints kicks in, which is not enough to actually hold that bottle, so it crashes to splinter in a thousand shards on that awful ceramic tile floor.
Again.

You'd think I'd compensate by holding tighter. But I forget to remember.
Another dirty trick.
As I gaze at the current mess, my mind goes for a wander back in time.

I hear voices.

"Find a way! Figure it out. Go in the back door. Try a different approach." the voice says.
Because back when my students were discouraged I spoke those very same words countless times as their teacher.
There was even a poster I had on my special ed classroom wall for years.
It showed a photo of a young man in a wheelchair, poised over the tippy top edge of one of those crazy skateboard half pipes, ready to fling himself over and off.
Your heart skipped a beat just looking at it.

Next to that picture was another of a group of kids playing ping pong in a school yard. Their school in the background was a half bombed out pile of rubble. The table was without a net, cracked, and missing one leg. A dozen kids were lined up to play. Before taking the cardboard paddle, the first in line took a turn at the corner, serving as the missing table leg so the others could play.
Three legs and a child and they were in business.
They found a way.

I used that poster many times when a student with a disability came in to whine that he wasn't able to do something because of his limitations.
I'd look intently in their eyes and point silently at the poster. The kid then usually groaned in disgust and went back to try again.
I'll never forget a terrific young man, a senior football player with severe dyslexia, who came to me just about defeated after struggling with a science text and a long written assignment.
"Mz Dub! There's no way I can pass this class! There's just too many words!" he wailed in defeat, words on paper being far more formidable than a hulking tackle trying to knock him flat.
I pointed to the poster and handed him a small tape recorder.
He groaned.
But then he went to his teacher, they worked something out for the written work, and he passed the class.

Now I hear the voices of my students laughingly tell me many times a day, "Find a way, Mz Dub!"
That's irony for you.
And maybe justice too.
So, I usually groan in disgust and try it again a different way.

Come to think of it, that's how I started cleaning mirrors with paper towels and that long "swiffee" mop reachy-thingy.
And how I figured out how to make pasta without carrying a pot of boiling water to the sink while still seated. (Just turn off the heat and use tongs to grab, dangle-drain and transfer the noodles to a bowl.)

Okay kids, stop laughing now.
The geezer will "find a way."

So, in honor of those young voices in my old head, I send this admonition out to all of you who may be struggling to accomplish something that's just too difficult.

"Remember that you can have a ping pong tournament on a 3-legged table."
 Just find a way!