The Purpose Of Life And The Life In Your Years Elita Sohmer Clayman

Today, June 30^th, is a day of a kind of transition. What kind of transition? First of all, we had a bad storm last night and 500,000 people were without power and now at almost 8 pm, there are still over 400,000 without it and possibly many will not have it on until the middle of next week. That is a terrible transition from nice summer days to terrible summer days without air conditioning, some without water, and others whose homes were damaged by falling trees and whose cars were demolished by the falling trees.

That is quite a transition. My friend Cindy who owns the dance studio where we frequent, when aching knees are not aching, lives eight miles from her studio and Friday night, it took her 4.5 hours to get home. She could have gone to New York City and then some with that mileage. We do not realize until something happens, how tranquil we have it when everything is going along fine.

I love sayings and here is a good one. “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”  Also “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts, it’s the life in your years.” The first one is by Robert Byrne and the second one by Abraham Lincoln.

All of our purposes in  most of our lives is to live a good life consisting of family, good income, excellent health, dear children, owning our very own home, perhaps an interesting hobby, having money to retire when the time comes and seeing our children and grandchildren prosper and very happy. We try not to have too many emergencies happening to us. When we do, we solve them and get through them with patience, skill and hope.

Today, some people in this area of Maryland find themselves in a terrible crisis if they have no electricity and may not for many days and also if their cars or homes were damaged by the storm. It will take time to clean up, get paid by their insurance company and continue on. Then they realize how contented they were before the storm. Anyone who has to stay in the car for four hours or more realizes the next time they are out and about and come home in the usual travel time; how lucky they are and  they always took it for granted and complained when traffic stalled them for an extra fifteen minutes.

When I was young, we walked most everywhere we had to go. We walked to elementary school and even came home for lunch, since there were no cafeterias in the schools. Then we walked back to school after lunch and all that was allowed was one hour for walk home, eat and walk back. It was a break in the school day and everyone did it. We walked to the dentist, to the movies; to the small shops we needed supplies from and to the public library where we took out the current books we wanted and got information from for reports and all our studies. Walking was the normal thing and everyone did it.My mom use to schlep (drag home or bring home) the groceries carrying them in huge shopping bags with handles on them and walking at least three blocks from the streetcar or bus to our home. This was the normal routine of most of the neighbors. The ones ‘rich’ enough to own a car, traveled by car to get these items. Dad did not own a car until I was about fourteen, because he could not afford one. He bought a used (now called pre-owned) Plymouth, wine colored and we thought we were rich then at the moment he drove it home from the car dealer. He paid five hundred dollars for it and that was a bargain, his friend the car dealer gave him for the purchase.

The car was our ‘rich we were feeling’ and that lasted for a long time, the feeling and the car. The feeling was an extremely fascinating feeling of happiness for our family. We looked at the car as we were rising economically in the world. For us, it was our life of purpose. We were able to get around better and it was more convenient for his job and for our leisure life. One thing, Dad was an extremely slow driver and sometimes when I was with him, I wanted to scream for him to drive faster. I did not. It was his car, his life and his joy- that beautiful used car from the year 1947 or 1948. He kept it clean on the outside and the inside. It was his baby, now that I was a teen and no longer his baby girl. I am glad that he finally bought a car and felt like “he was with the in crowd”, because most of the relatives did have cars and that made him standout for not owning one at the time.

The purpose of his life before buying the car was to see that we four had a good roof over our house, plenty of food to eat, educational prospects and good health. Then, when he saw them in order, he went and bought the car and came home proud as a peacock, to show it off to Mom, me and my brother.

I thought when I saw the saying by Abraham Lincoln, what is the purpose of my life? Have you ever thought of life that way? I thought I would make a list. So far the purposes have been accomplished.

I grew up OK, worked, met my spouse, married, had two children, bought a home, had my own car (brand new ones, every one of them) took up the hobby I desired-ballroom dancing, tried to keep healthy, became a grandmother, we retired and did a bit of traveling to Europe, Hawaii, cruises and here in this country. So my main purposes were accomplished, plus I was an extraordinary daughter to my parents when they were alive. Also, I graduated college at the old age of thirty-nine years old.

So what are the remaining purposes and desires at this year of becoming seventy-eight? They are as of this moment, to continue to have pretty good health, so I can live to see my grandchildren grow up and  I have some great grandchildren, to stop my aching knees and Jerry’s too from aching and getting back to our beloved hobby, you guessed it, dancing, to get about more than I do now with the knees hurting and even walking the whole mall, any mall would be a nice purpose, rather than ordering online most things, because I do not walk so great. I have another purpose and that is to continue on writing these Patch articles because this is good for my mind, my fingers, my heart and my ego. I hope that Jerry and I can celebrate many more anniversaries after our 52^nd one this coming Thursday and I hope for my children and grandchildren and my friends, that we all get to stay healthy and to attain any purposes we want in the near future. A future maybe, with good health up to one hundred .That is a lofty purpose.

In the end and the beginning too, it is the life in all your years, that you experience with joy, happiness, fun and peace.