Category: Life

Posted in Life

A happy ending? Not yet.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Juri Gianfrancesco on Unsplash

“Hey, Bill!”

I turned my head and saw a young man coming out of the coffee shop behind me. My face must have announced, “Who are you?” so he called out, “It’s J.”

I’m good with names and don’t forget faces, but he looked a lot different than the last time I saw him. His head was shaved and his beard was about three inches long. Was it his eyes? Or his smile? Suddenly I recognized him. It had been at least two years since I had talked with him and his wife.

“Wow,” I said, “How have you been?”

He kept smiling but I could tell from the look in his eyes that it was going to be tough to answer that question.

“Well,” he began, “J. (his wife) and I had a son. His name is Josiah. He is amazing.”

He paused and I had the feeling his story was about to take a turn for the worse.

“After Josiah was born, J. had postpartum depression. She was in the hospital for a month. Then she had a really bad day, and she took her life.”

J.’s words hung in the air. I had no words. All I could do was look into his eyes, listening, trying to imagine how much strength it took to speak about that loss.

I thought about the young couple who had wandered into our church one Sunday morning. I remembered their hospitality when they invited me to their apartment for supper. I thought about the baby who would never know his mother. I wondered how J. was dealing with a life no one envisions.

I asked, “So, how are you?”

It had been six months since her death. J.’s chiropractic practice was doing well. He was working out at the gym two times a day six times a week. He had a strong network of doctors and pastors who were walking with him through this chapter of his life. At least for that moment, he was doing well.

Then he said, “Oh, and I have to tell you. If you have a chance, try the egg, ham, and gouda breakfast sandwich here. It’s is amazing.”

I know, a bit off topic. But I was still in shock, so I went with it. “Does that fit in with your nutritional guidance?” J. was bit into holistic health, especially eating right.

He chuckled and said, “Well, my bodybuilding workouts require 4,500 calories a day. This might not be the best, but it helps me towards that goal.”

I want to reach out to J. and learn more about his journey as a mourning husband and single father. I’ve written a few hundred words here. But he could write a whole book, right?

A happy ending? Not yet. But you never know.

Posted in faith, Life

A distant memory: the incandescent light bulb

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Every morning I draw a small picture in my journal about something that stood out in my daily devotions. I usually copy something I’ll find online. Today, since I read Matthew 5, I looked for a drawing of salt and light. I found many to choose from.

Today I noticed that most of the sketches about being the light of the world are incandescent light bulbs. You remember incandescent lightbulbs, don’t you? They feature a filament with enough resistance to glow and fill a room with light. They burn hot, too. Let them cool before you replace one. Incandescent bulbs were banned in the US in last year (2023), although you can still buy them online.

They first gave way to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL). They came in all kinds of spiral-y, twisty shapes to fit where incandescent bulbs once did. It usually took a few moments for them to reach full brightness. I think we still have some in our home, probably in the ceiling fan lights. They were cool to the touch. They were discontinued because of disposal and recycling challenges.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are what we uise today. They are smaller, use less power, glow in different colors, and last a long time. Our world is lit with LEDs.

When Jesus said, “You are the light of the world,” his audience would have thought of a flame that burned from the wick of an oil lamp. It would be about 1,800 years before the invention of a lightbulb.

So since you are (according to Jesus) the “light of the world,” what kind of bulb are you? Old school Thomas Edison incandescent? Curly avant-garde CFL? Cutting-edge LED? Ancient oil lamp?

It doesn’t matter. Just be light.

Posted in Life

I live here: walks around the neighborhood

Posted on by William Douthwaite

When we brought Winston home last June, I started taking him for walks around our neighborhood every morning and evening. An eight-month-old West Highland White Terrier puppy has energy to spare, so we explored every street in our corner of the community.

When we brought home puppy number two, a Great Dane, our walking habits changed. At eight weeks, Willow wanted nothing to do with leashes, walks or the neighborhood. She was content staying close to home and exploring the back yard. Both dogs still get plenty of exercise wrestling with each other and chasing each other around the yard.

When I took Winston out for a walk around the block last week I realized how much I missed those walks. Those walks around familiar streets make me feel part of the neighborhood and the community.

I enjoy watching the progress of lots being cleared and houses being built on the last wooded lots. Boxes along the curb or a rental truck in the driveway announces who is moving in our out even before a realtor puts a sign up in the yard.

I’ve gotten to know a lot more of my neighbors and on my walks. They are working in the yard, on their car, or getting some exercise themselves. We always pause at the bus stop so the kids have a chance to pet Winston. Plus, we get to know the other dogs who live near us. Some bark at us from inside of their house, while others are out for walks, too.

I enjoy everyone’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations. I’m amazed at the weekly piles of mattresses, appliances, and furniture on trash collection days. Squirrels, bunnies and cats watch as we walk by. If we time it right, we get to hear the owls talking to each other at dawn or dusk.

One neighbor has a garage full of birds singing in cages. Another is restoring a car from the 1940’s. Some greet us with heavy Russian or Hispanic accents. Many have gotten a new roof in the past year. One had the roof torn off by a tornado. Lots of cars parked along the street announce who’s having a party. A walker in front of one garage door hasn’t been moved in months.

When I go for walks, I feel alive. I think of stories to write. I think of prayers to pray. I find coins on the street. I check out what’s in people’s recycling bins. I whistle back at the birds. I feel like I live here.

Willow is coming along. She was willing to walk on a least around our front yard today. Just a few more steps every day and before you know it, she’ll be walking me around the block, too.

Posted in Life

I guess we only need one car

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Marius Christensen on Unsplash

It’s been a while since we only had one car. Just about forty years to be exact. My wife and I each brought a car into the marriage and we’ve always had at least two. Until today.

With both of us working and three kids to raise, we drove off in directions more often than not. As a nurse and a pastor, my wife and I spent a lot of time driving to hospitals all over northeast Florida. When our three children attended three different schools, they needed rides to dance classes, band rehearsals, sports practices, and friends’ houses. When they learned to drive, we parked three cars in the driveway.

All of that has changed in retirement. Without daily trips to church, hospitals, nursing homes, and members’ homes, I drive a lot less than I used to. Most of the time, one car sits idly in the driveway. So why do we have two? Good question. Could we get by with just one car?

About half the homes in our neighborhood have more than two cars parked in the driveway. Few can squeeze a car into their junk-filled garage. My neighbor has two Corvettes in the garage, and another two cars in the driveway for him and his wife. Around the corner, another neighbor has four cars parked in a circular driveway, two of which haven’t budged in over two years. I believe single-car households are the exception rather than the rule.

Here is our strategy for owning just one car:

  • Keep and frequently check Google calendar to avoid conflicting appointments.
  • Work towards going to the grocery store once a week, rather than every day. The trick will be better lists and better planning. How often have you had to start a new shopping list as soon as you started putting away the groceries you just brought home from the store?
  • If we put our minds to it, we can bunch our errands together into one outing rather than several.
  • When I need something at the store or I want to go to the library, I can always ride my bike. Many of the places I drive are just a couple of miles away. In a pinch, there’s always Uber or Lyft. Or a neighbor.

Cutting car expenses in half is a welcome improvement in our budget. Gas, insurance, maintenance, and payments can consume large portions of our income. Or not, if we don’t have as many vehicles.

So we’ve got one car parked in the driveway. We’re going to give it a shot.

Posted in Life, time

Right on time: we missed all the excitement

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Stan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/car-side-mirror-showing-heavy-traffic-191842/

As I came down the highway exit ramp, I saw the red flashing lights off to my left. I saw the police car first, then a car with a smashed in driver’s side, and then a pickup truck up against a tree. I shifted lanes to pass by, noticing more lit-up police cars approaching from both directions. Within a quarter mile, two fire engines, three more police cars and an EMT flew past us. A response like that means a fatality. Just a few minutes later, the radio reported all lanes closed in both directions.

We missed it by a minute.

If we had left the house one minute earlier, we might have been the ones involved in the crash. If we had left the house one minute later, we would have been stuck in stand-still traffic.

We didn’t experience either. We left at the right time, drove at the right speed, and missed all the excitement. Coincidence? Providence? Who knows. Grateful? Absolutely.

In some cultures, time isn’t relevant. On mission trips to Haiti and Kenya, morning departure time for the clinic was when the trucks arrived. Lunchtime? When the food showed up. What time should we be ready for supper? When we no longer heard the sound of chickens from the kitchen, there was still time for a nap before washing up.

The inner city church where I interned started the worship when it looked like most of the congregation was present.

In my grandchildren’s world, it’s always snack time. It doesn’t matter if only been minutes since lunch or just a few moments before supper, they’re trolling for snacks. With the last bite of a snack in one hand, they are already pleading for the next.

In other settings, time rules. I remember family members missing a baptism because they showed up ten minutes late for worship. Leave those spritz cookies in the oven one extra minute and the bottoms are burnt. If I don’t check in online exactly twenty-four hours before my flight, I’ll end up sitting in a different row than my wife.

Early? Late? On time? In retirement, it doesn’t seem to matter as much. Except when I miss all the excitement at the scene of a crash.

Posted in lessons, Life

Listing ended: better luck next time

Posted on by William Douthwaite
I could have had this watch for $3.25

I’ve begun doing some running again after a few years off. My feet still ache a little, but not enough to keep me away from a few miles here and there. I started carrying my iPhone with me so the Map My Run app could figure out the time and distance of each run around neighborhood streets.

I don’t especially like carrying anything on a run, so I thought I’d look into getting a GPS-equipped running watch. I had a bare-bones Garmin Forerunner 10 a decade ago. It did the job, but had lousy battery life. Some of the latest model Garmin watches can set you back more than a thousand dollars. Surely I can find something in-between on eBay.

And I did. Someone was offering a Garmin triathlon sports watch. Had some wear and tear, but fully waterproof and had nice battery life. It had one bid for $2.25 with five days to go. It was tested, working, included a charger, and could be returned for a refund if I wanted to send it back. What did I have to lose? I bid $3.25, with automatic increases up to $10.

With a day to go, I was the highest bidder at $10. But you know how that goes. Bidders lurk until the last minute to out bid you. No problem. There were lots of other watches for sale.

Then I got an alert that the auction had been cancelled. The watch was no longer for sale. A note said, “The item has been lost or broken.” Oops. But, an hour later, it was listed again, with the same $2.25 bid and a buy now option of $39.95.

The seller either didn’t know what he or she was doing, or they weren’t getting the bids they anticipated. Or, they were messing around and broke the watch. Or the dog chewed it up. Or they started working out again. Or they lost it. Who knows?

I know I’ll find a bargain. I’ll bet there are as many unused running watches out there as there are unused gym memberships. I come across new listings every day.

This happened to me once before, when I was bidding on a vintage Monopoly game. The price was low, I was the winning bidder, but the seller suddenly ended the auction. I found another one in minutes. Their loss.

Posted in Life

I’m on a mission

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
View all responses
Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mission-wooden-blocks-on-white-surface-7666429/

“Give me a mission!”

When we took our five-year old grandson and his two sisters to a playground, they climbed on the playscape, slid down the slides, and swung on the swings. Now what? “Give me a mission!”

The last time my son had brought his kids here, he challenged them with a scavenger hunt to keep them occupied for a while. Now they wanted a quest to accompany every outing.

As we discovered, it didn’t have to be complicated. There’s always trash around, so I said, “Go find six water bottle caps.” And off they ran. A few minutes later, they laid out a nice row of plastic caps on the picnic table.

“What’s the next mission?”

Life is filled with short and long term goals any of which could be classified as a mission. But I think this prompt intends to uncover an overarching purpose for one’s life. The mission shifts from graduating and getting a job to raising a new generation. Once they graduate and get jobs, another generation comes along to grandparent. But now my current mission is figuring out a meaningful retirement.

In his children’s novel Mathilda, Roald Dahl wrote, “I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.” I like this line. It fits my present mission as I explore relationships, improve skills, understand time, and ponder my mission on any given day.

When the mission is figuring out my mission, anything is possible.

Posted in Life

Just long enough

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
View all responses
Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

My thoughts about living a long life are shaped by some of the ninety and one hundred year olds I’ve gotten to know.

Bob was ninety-eight years old when I called to see how he was doing. His eyesight was failing and he knew it was time to sell his home and finds a different living arrangement. He shared with me, “I know where I’m going after I die. I’m just not ready to go yet.” I thought, “Wow. When will you be ready?”

My dad was in his nineties when my brother and sister and I decided he couldn’t be alone in his house anymore. All of a sudden, he stopped taking care of the yard, cleaning the house, and getting haircuts. He knew it was time for a change, too.

When I visited my dad in assisted living, we spent a lot of time looking through old pictures. He said, “I think I’m getting old.” I said, “Dad, you’re in your nineties.” He looked at me like I was insane. “No I’m not!” When we affirmed his birthday and figured out his age, he was surprised by his age.

Another friend, Betty, has made it to one hundred and two years so far. She has outlived all her friends and most of her family. She had little to look forward to each day.

So why do we exercise, take vitamins, and eat a healthy diet? We want to put off death as long as possible. Which means aspire to live a very long life.

And we rarely stop to think about what that means.

It means someone else will be taking care of us. It means we will no longer live in our own home. It means that we will have outlived most of our friends and family. It means that you will most likely be very, very lonely.

So I want to live just long enough. Just long enough to hold a great-grandchild, finish writing my story, sing a song, eat a piece of chocolate, and down a shot of bourbon.

That should be long enough.

Posted in Life

I can do anything differently. But I probably won’t.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What could you do differently?
View all responses
Photo by Mulyadi on Unsplash

For a whole year, people have asked me the opposite question: “What can you do the same?” In other words, what habits and systems will you establish to relieve stress, increase productivity, and make incremental improvements? This comes from successful folks who share their morning rituals with me so that I can have a better life. They discipline themselves to wake up at the same time, dress the same way, eat the same meals, and take the same route to work in order to clear their minds for more important tasks. Those folks would advocate that the one thing I could do differently is to do the same thing every day.

But Jerry Seinfeld challenged George Costanza, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” George tries it and immediately connects with a woman who had been looking in his direction. Doing things differently changes his life, at least for one episode.

So I can do anything and everything differently. The possibilities are endless. Multiple options are within my grasp. However, I know I’m probably not going to do much differently. I am a creature of habit.

But what I can do differently isn’t actually different. It’s just “one more” or “one percent more” of what I’ve been doing. It’s reading one more page or running one more minute. It’s writing one more paragraph or practicing a line of music one more time. It’s saying one more prayer or drinking one more sip of water. Over time, I run faster, feel healthier, and sound better. And I didn’t do anything differently.