Thursday, May 03, 2012

This morning whilst waiting to board an airplane in Norfolk I got into a conversation with a very pleasant little old lady. She was going to California (by way of Dallas) to visit a friend and we struck up a conversation. I was so fascinated how her smile lines and other parts of her face moved around as she spoke. that sounds ridiculous but it's true! So soft, with tiny lips, she was only 5 foot in her younger days. She was very proud of the fact that she had 3 great grandchildren...We spoke at length, and I got enough information from her for a very short biography. One thing she said, though, struck me quite a bit, was that of her two grandsons, the one in DC came to visit her every few months...the one who lives less than 10 miles away she sees only yearly it seems. Her third great grandchild, a little girl, is 6 months old and she has not even met her yet. I asked why, and she said "because they are so busy...they don't have time" In our advanced society, we have more labor saving and time saving devices than we know what do do with, so our precious time is wasted more and more. We have a surplus of time and instead of working, moving, traveling towards and visiting with those we love, we veg with a tv....or we read books (usually not) or go to the gym instead of making time for family and friends which is infinitely more important. Why would we do this? in the old days, they wished they had more time in between seasons of farming so that they could visit folks, see people, travel back to Ireland and see the folks...things are so different. another evidence of the anti-people culture.