I WISH I'D HAD A WAITING CHAIN

Time goes on.
So whatever you're going to do.
Do it. Do it now. Don't wait. 

- Robert De Niro

Waiting Chains

My good friend Missy makes “waiting chains.” In their most simple state, they are just strips of colored paper linked together, but what they represent is a tangible picture of time. With each passing day, as a link is removed, she can see how many days she will be “waiting” for special events to happen like Christmas Day, graduation day, and moving-into-her-new-home day.

Just think how powerful a waiting chain would be if we had them to show the length of our lives in days. As each day passed, we could clearly see how many days we had left to do what we needed to do. How much time we wouldn’t want to waste. How much time we had left to say what we needed to say to the people we love so dearly.

I wish I’d a waiting chain in March. . . .

Hey Pop,

“Hey Pop, remember how every single time you called me on the phone, you’d say, ‘Yeah Patty. It’s Pop,’ and then you’d tell me what you called about. I’d smile in my head because I always knew it was you without you telling me.”

“Hey Pop, remember that feather pillow you demolished and threw out the window of the building next to your house and when your dad looked out, he thought it was snowing, but when he realized it wasn’t, you had to pick up ALL the feathers? Too funny!”

“Hey Pop, remember that time you chartered a fishing boat and you, mom, me, Megan, Patrick, and your friend Henry went fishing for rockfish in the Chesapeake? And poor Megan got so seasick but we caught a bunch of rockfish and they tasted so good?” 

“Hey Pop, remember when we’d open Christmas presents and you’d always say at the end after all the presents were unwrapped, every Christmas you'd say, ‘We made out like gangbusters!’ I never asked you where you ever got such a crazy saying. Where did that come from anyway Pop?”

“Hey Pop, remember my favorite time you and me went clamming and you rowed the boat out till you thought it was shallow enough to walk the rest of the way. And when you jumped out, you disappeared completely under the water and I freaked out until you popped up and said, ‘Damn, that’s deeper than I thought!!!’ And we laughed, but only after I had rowed us to the shoal. And remember how you always thought it was hilariously funny to scare me by rubbing your rake handle against my submerged legs so I’d think some creature was near? And we would laugh because no matter how vigilant I’d be at first, I’d get lost in the clamming and you’d scare me this trip, just like the others?”

Yeah, I wish I had a waiting chain in March and then I would have known I only had 3 days left to tell you all the things I wanted to say before March 4th came and your new paper chain began with its infinite strips. . . .

“Hey Pop. Remember, I love you!”