Susan Dykes, LMT, CST, Writer, Speaker
Dusk was falling as I drove through all the small towns, en route to mom’s. It was the first time in many years I had gotten a later start than usual. As the sun descended below the horizon, I began to notice lights in the homes and farm communities that surrounded me.
It was a welcoming site, warm and inviting to the quiet landscape I witnessed. The scene, as well as the feelings being stirred, took me back to a time when life seemed much more simple.
Listening to the quiet of the radio, I assumed many of these homes held dear memories and life stages of older people. I believed many of these homes to be owned by those who had possibly lived on this land, in these places for most, if not all of their lives.
Because of their age, I supposed those living here didn’t get out when the sun went down. They were no longer comfortable driving in traffic or in the dark. Thus the warm lights I saw emanating from a single den or kitchen window offered me a feeling of serenity rather than hustle or bustle.
Memories flooded my heart. They enveloped and evoked small tears as I remembered a time when I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave what I considered sleepy towns and what I considered dying ways of life.
I recalled how I was in a hurry to get out the door, away from the childhood work, the farm so to speak, to now realize it was those times that helped define my ethics and morals. In a trade-off for something bigger and better. I long ago might have exchanged a sleepy community for travel and adventure.
Getting older myself, maybe not much wiser, this drive had me wondering if maybe I’m the one who had missed out on something bigger than myself. Maybe in my desire to grow up, to make it in this world, I had forgotten how people in small towns looked after each other.
Maybe I had forgotten how people in these communities cared for all things and people in a manner that should be recyclable. Truly, tonight’s ride during the twilight might just be God’s way of having me come full circle for what life is really all about.
Sometimes it takes traveling home in the dark to recognize where I come from, all I’ve witnessed, and where I now find myself in this season.
As I’ve aged, I’ve learned older people take each day as it comes. They may have nothing more on their calendar than doctors appointments, a card game, or a few phone calls to check on those they consider to be shut-ins.
But these people have something our current society may be hungry for. They have an inner strength that carries them through the night and into each day.
Yes, they have worries and concerns that are much different than in younger times. But they exhibit a calm within themselves that suggests life is sometimes difficult, but in the end, they have learned life is about people over things.
It’s about finding value in the smallest of events, rather than finding value in the number of gadgets or materials one might have.
History tells me these older generations have seen things we, the younger generations may not understand. It wouldn’t surprise me to realize these older people, those in the sleepy communities, probably know more than many of us have forgotten.
Given society’s tendency to hurry and keep up with the quicker pace of life, as well as the hustle and bustle that accompanies getting ahead these days, is it possible to take a few lessons from those who came before?
As I continued my route, many ideas swirled with continued notice of simple lights of smaller homes and areas. This evening was bringing forward the fact that my mom, and others like her, had survived the man-made Dust Bowl in the late ’20s and ’30s. They had survived the Great Depression, the Stock Market crash, multiple recessions that came with new Presidents and their way ahead, and they had survived WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield/Storm, Afghanistan and so much more.
I feel sure the news today upsets aging generations tremendously. And I feel sure those frustrations have little to do with being older, more feeble, or unable to do all of what they once could. This older generation seemed resilient as my eyes adjusted to the changing light.
They worry because they know life, at one time, was about more than short-term gains and stock market prices.
If I were to sit and speak with anyone from the G.I. Joe or Silent generation, I might be taught life was about taking care of the people, while still making profits.
I might learn how at one-time people had trust in the employer, the employee, as well as the programs that afforded long-term stability and security, over bank accounts.
Climbing the ladder in a linear fashion, working the land with hands that created new crops, these people might tell me how all they had been through was sealed within themselves, how the community was a place itself where everyone and everything mattered.
They might inform me of a knowingness where once upon a time people could afford to live because everyone worked together to help everyone have what was needed. They lived on necessities, not luxuries. The importance of life consisted of feeding families, tending farms, and still finding time to rest and relax, as well as count blessings.
Was it the fewer choices, the fewer channels or chances, maybe even the idea they had more freedom than we have today that makes these generations resilient?
As I traveled through the farmlands and witnessed tractors return from the fields or trucks return from tending cattle, I wondered how our world has moved so far away from what defines the spiritual core of our older generations?
What drives them to get up and face each day no matter the circumstances? What gave them permission to change steps when called to do so?
Simplicity, coupled with stamina, coupled with faith, coupled with home, coupled with less greed – our older generations seem to have much of this.
Yet, we as the youth of today seldom take time to recognize the old ways because all we look for is a different way with possibly little effort or risk. We ignore some of the tales spoken by those who have walked many years through life. We only think of any of this as “days of old”, something old-fashioned.
That’s an ominous thought. Freedom, livable wages, caring for people. It is a moral act. And the lights I am seeing, along with the feelings and thoughts I’m experiencing take me back to the idea of a time when people did the right thing, took careful risks, lived within their means, and cared for people more than competition and adversity, arguments and filibusters that seldom accomplish anything.
Maybe I’m being melancholy or maybe I sound like a chicken little claiming the sky is falling.
For sure, I am rambling, or maybe crazy.
Given all I see on social media today, I am positive some would argue that the world has not gone crazy. They would argue that time has not sped past being able to enjoy an evening of quiet when everything from the day is complete to the best of their ability.
Certainly, others would argue that the government or others will take care of us when it all hits the fan. That’s what people from the ’20s and ’30s thought too. It took sand from Oklahoma reaching the desks of Congress in D.C. to get the attention that something was wrong at the lowest of levels.
In my heart, with the lights of my own home glowing in the distance, my mind wants my heart to understand that each generation has its own burdens to bear. My mind wishes me to believe it is not delirious with restlessness for better times, or days of old when life seemed simple.
My mind wants to quiet my heart for all of the different beliefs walking this earth today. It wants to look back, not forge ahead without a path or push through without a plan.
I’m not a politician, scientist, or theologian, and I am certainly not God. My only prayer as I turn into the drive of my childhood home is that we each do our part to make the world a better place. My mom will remind me when I go through the door God has a plan.
And whether you tell me I am old-fashioned or avoidant of new ideas for the future, I hope the lights of my own home will one day cause others to reflect on the quiet and serenity for a time of return, a time of care, giving those after me something to appreciate. I feel sure the people whose houses I’ve passed tonight will hope the same.
