Bits and Pieces

What’s Important? Rocky recently got new hearing aids. Our health insurance was recently improved to include hearing aids. It is a generous benefit. Our co-pay was $200, and an unknown benefactor reimbursed us for that expense. What a generous gift! The new hearing aids are terrific. Rocky finally can hear much better than he had before. This is an important part of life. It is a need and a quality of life feature. It is not a want. Food is a need; cuisine is a want. Interesting what we see as basic and not.

Changing Needs (Less): I love cars. How they look, act and feel are all important aspects. Utility is important, of course, but oddly, that is not a feature of the love. No, it is smell, sound, feel and performance that feeds the love.

By February 1 we must decide to return our leased vehicle or buy it outright. The contract specifies the price based on initial lease specifics. The pandemic will see our mileage totaling about 20,000 miles; lease payments were calculated on using 45,000 miles in three years. Meanwhile, used car shortages have increased auto values. Our car will be worth about $22,000 on the market while the buyout price is $16,000. I could buy the car and turn around and sell it then buy a cheaper car for cash and be rid of the loan payment. Will I do that, or will the worry of reliability and pending repairs scare me off from paying cash for a cheap set of wheels?

We don’t need a new car. We don’t need creature comforts. We will not drive it on vacations, only to local stores and medical services. I wonder what we will do.

Death and Loss: I have chronicled two deaths recently. Beyond those two, three more are beckoning (old age and critical illnesses), with continued worry about COVID infections in our region and nationally. I wonder if this is coincidence or if I am in a season of heightened sensitivity. Whatever it is, loss is loss however it is counted. Missing someone has more emotional weight than missing a thing or event in one’s life. Trifles can be replaced. Events can find substitutes. But people? Much more complex. A lifetime of feelings, relationships, reliance, emotional support, and just plain love. Memories flood our brains of the lost one. Knowing we will never connect with that person again is the center of loss. The memories, however, fill a void for a time. Soon that comfort ebbs and we seek different comfort.

Piecing together things that matter to us continues haphazardly. We try different things to see if they fit. To fill the gaps. To soothe the ache.

Things do not have lasting power. An art piece is remembered and recalled. A book or specific literature is found online or in a library. Sharing ideas with a trusted other is a worthy investment of time and energy. Things are either replaced or substituted. It is an idea they represent, not a fully complex being that is now absent from our lives.

We give each other time to ponder these losses. Each is personal. Each has its own timeframe of healing. Meanwhile we learn so much about ourselves and each other. Those lessons come with pain but are eternal. This is what life is about. The yin and yang teach us. Are we willing students?

September 9, 2021