WAITING AT THE CEMETERY

I sat under the sprawling arms of an age-old tree and let the sun warm my skin. The tree stood at the edge of a quiet rural cemetery. And I sat under it because my bike had developed a flat rear tire. I had no spare tube nor any way to inflate one if I'd remembered to pack one in the small seat bag. But I'd put my cell phone in my jersey pocket so I called my oldest son to come get me (his car has a bike rack on the roof). Then I just waited.
In many ways, I thought, I am waiting on the outside edge of a cemetery. Literally and figuratively. I was waiting for him to drive by so I could flag him down and get a ride home. And I am waiting, spiritually and figuratively, for my life to end and so enter into a cemetery. Not this particular cemetery, mind you, but that place we all go at death.
I could have nursed the flat tire back home -- some 15 miles or more -- but that would destroy the tire and possibly damage the wheel. I know because I have done this before. I opted for the more economical, but easily also more embarrassing phone call and wait for a ride.
I could rage against the passage of time, dress like today's teens, grow my hair long again, buy a sports car, find a 20-something "girlfriend" and burn the physical, mental and spiritual candle at both ends, day and night. But that would destroy a lifetime of learning as well as take a terrible toll on the very health on which I rely. I know this because I lived through that when I was in my teens and 20s. I know this because I periodically stepped back into that way of life when work demanded 24-hour-plus shifts or the rare gathering lasted until the wee hours of the lightening morning. I prefer to act my age, for the most part, and accept that I am old and growing older with increasing speed, even if that means I no longer am attractive to women because of thinning, graying hair, the lines age sculpts onto a face and a body unable to fight gravity as it did when young and supple.
So I sit under a tree, on the "living" side of the fence surrounding a cemetery, and wait. Either someone will come along and save me, offering me a love to last me until my dying day, or I may just open those gates and head inside.
After all, given enough time, the grass eventually does look a lot greener on the other side.