By: Marlene Oxender
Years ago, I ran into my friend Kim who told me that I wouldn’t believe how often she thinks of me. A statement such as that will make you ask why you’ve been in their thoughts.
She told me that it dates back to a continuing education meeting we’d attended together. The speaker of the day stood at a podium, and the rest of us were seated at tables in the convention room.
During the presentation, a lady at the next table seemed to have a lot of comments and questions.
It appeared she thought she was being helpful by sharing her knowledge with the group. She even pointed out grammar errors on the overhead screen – just to be helpful.
At break time, we watched as she gathered all the extra pens and notepads from the tables. She conducted herself in a confident manner as she collected the unclaimed items, stating that she had a use for them.
I felt sorry for her. If only she knew she didn’t have to be such a problem-solver, life would be so much easier for her and those around her. After lunch when the presentation started up again, we witnessed her continued “helpfulness.” Her comments were tiring.
I wanted to share my thoughts with someone, and Kim was sitting beside me. I knew that whispering was not a polite thing to do.
And although slipping a note to her was equally impolite, I went ahead and did it anyway. I wrote my thoughts on a small piece of paper and passed it to her.
The note-slipping didn’t surprise her, but the words on the paper: “It has to be tough – when you are in charge of the world” caused a smile.
Kim took the little piece of paper home to share with her husband, and they decided the note was frame-worthy. It became their mantra. They remind each other that they’re not in charge of the world. They move on. They enjoy life. Sometimes we need reminders written on little notes.
Several years ago, my husband and I went to lunch at a resort in Mexico. We gave our name and room number to the hostess, Mileini, who would be seating us. She asked us if we knew how to say our last name in Spanish, and of course we did not.
We chatted with her until others arrived behind us, so Mileini walked with us to our table. She told us she would write our last name on a little piece of paper. We were to find her before we left the restaurant.
During our meal we asked each other how it could be. How could there be a Spanish translation of our last name? “Oxender” is German, so it had us puzzled. What would our last name be in Spanish?
As we were departing, Mileini was standing at the counter. She had written the information on a small piece of paper and took a few moments to explain the translation to us.
She pointed to her handwriting on the card and explained the word “Apellido” means “last name” in Spanish.
She’d also written the translation for “Room number” which is “Numero de Habitacion.” And the translation for “How many people” is “Cuantas Personas?”
Her words really made us smile, but we didn’t tell her why. The little piece of pink paper she’d gifted us is the size of a business card, so we had a souvenir to take home and place in our desk drawer. We will never see Mileini Reyes again. We will, however, remember her cuteness and charm.
As we walked away from the restaurant that afternoon, my husband said that our conversation with Mileini reminded him of the scene from the television series Taxi when Rev. Jim needed to take a written driver’s test.
As he was taking the test, he needed help with the answers. He whispered to his friend, “What does a yellow light mean?”
His friend whispered back, “Slow down.” So, Jim began to pronounce each word more slowly as he asked again what a yellow light means.
The exchange went on, and Jim repeated the question more slowly each time he heard his friend answering with the words “Slow down.”
Every so often, I watch the Taxi clip online just to see the humor in how we sometimes don’t understand each other. It may be children who say the funniest things, but we’re never too old to laugh at our own misunderstandings.
My husband and I thought Mileini had an answer for us. And she did. She followed through with her end of the deal, and I now have a little piece of paper I will always keep. My mother did the same thing: She always kept little pieces of paper.
We would like to think that as we grow older, we grow wiser. But time stretches on, and we begin to think we don’t know much. We wonder how much more we don’t know.
If I were writing a book with all the answers, I would interview those who’ve reached the age of 80. I would ask them for their best answer. Then they can tell me what the question is. It’d be a fun book to write and equally fun to read.
If the universe conspired to write a note to us each day, it’d start with the sunrise that happens without our attention. We’d notice the flowers and trees blooming without any effort on our part.
The butterflies are out doing their thing with no direction from anyone. The oceans are busy making waves. The mountains are talking. The rivers are running. The moon and the stars are all about it.
Maybe we’re being told, in simple terms, what a yellow light means. We may want to slow down. We can spend our lives looking forward to the future or looking back at the past, but the only thing we’re actually experiencing is now.
We are alive for a reason. Our heart will see us through this life – beating about once every second until it knows it has permission to stop.
The only thing we’re in charge of is love. Love is the reason we’ve come here in the first place, and love is the reason we go home.
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Marlene Oxender is a writer, speaker, and author. She writes about growing up in the small town of Edgerton, her ten siblings, the memorabilia in her parents’ estate, and her younger brother, Stevie Kimpel, who was born with Down syndrome. Her two recently published books, Picket Fences and Stevie, are available on Amazon.