A Gift of Time Not Squandered

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“An extra hour of time. What would I do if I were handed an extra hour of time, to do with as I pleased?”

This thought suddenly arcs out of nowhere and, like a Cupid arrow, plants itself into his racing and fertile mind.

He prepares to go to bed Saturday night and dutifully resets the nearby clock so that eleven o’clock becomes ten o’clock. He is suddenly excited by this pressing idea that he’s being gifted, that an hour of his life has been handed back to him. He feels like Ebenezer Scrooge, waiting for the next revelation to be forced upon him, a revelation about Life and Meaning and Purpose…

What if the first ghost to appear is Sadie Logan, his late, revered Second Grade teacher, who gave him the best school year of his life? What if she appears just to observe him while he struggles with his decision? What if she grades him on what he intends to do with his precious extra hour?

Will he come up with a new theory of particle physics? Will he be inspired to write a new and lasting thought about the meaning of life, such as “Tomorrow is the day after the first day of the rest of your life.”? Will he fill the time carefully thanking all the people he’s never thanked, the people like Sadie who nudged him along in positive directions throughout the decades?

Will he decide to spend sixty minutes being unrelentingly kind and thoughtful?

He is filled with anticipation and ideas and outrageously pious thoughts.

He knows he is about to do something great.

Instead, he spends the spare hour lying abed on Sunday morning, contemplating stuff like this.

But he knows that, wherever and whenever Sadie is, she still believes in him.

And that is enough of an epiphany to make him feel the hour is not completely squandered

© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.

jim@jimreedbooks.com

http://www.jimreedbooks.com

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