30 Summers

The end of June has me thinking about time…

My work of 40 hours a week comes in quick, and early on Monday mornings. The daily routine begins with coffee, answering phone calls, answering questions, lots of standing, lots of listening to folks unload their woes. I collect my pay in exchange and go on about my day until another morning ferries me onto the next calendar square. We count the hours, my coworker and I, and bargain with the clock to move quickly…we beg for 5 o clock. How bad our days must be to “wish our lives away” in some sort of ignorance, ignoring our aging bodies while climbing up the trellis of mortality. Yes, the days are long, but the years are getting shorter.

If I live to be 70, I’ll get another 30 summers.

Another 30 gardens

30 pool seasons

30 more years of perfectly ripe cantaloupes.

This, of course, is the plan… but what if I only get 5 or 10 more summers, 1 or 2 more?

If this be my last then let me swim, and sweat, and be wild. Let my skin turn golden brown, my arms and legs go limber in the heat, my hair turn light around my face. 30 more times I’d want to see mist coming up from the lake after a steamy midday thunderstorm makes way for the sun’s return. I’d want to watch the yellow finch perch atop my sunflowers and pluck with delight its seeds, the bumblebees bounce from one bright bloom to another.

To turn the garden hose against myself and dry off in the afternoon sun, to pour salt on ripe watermelon and spit seeds across the yard. I’d stay drunk on “still-hot-from-the-sun-tomatoes” eating them like apples, one after another. I’d go swimming every, single, day.

But oh, to think about having 30 more summers leaves me in a state of bliss today. 30 more winters may fade the barn wood of my bones but 30 more springs would trickle a rosy pink back into my cheeks, just as the frozen creeks thaw. 30 more times I could watch the leaves turn from luscious green to bronze, fall onto the dark reflection of the water’s surface and glide away down the river.

Maybe I am in this time reflection because of a sad conversation I had this week with a patient. A young, 74 years old fellow who had a biopsy on a lung spot came to me with the report. “It’s cancer, and not the kind that’s curable.” He went on to explain that the treatment would be a kind of cruel torture that didn’t interest him, and so he has been acquainted with the hospice program. These are low moments at work, words come slow and sometimes the truth just has to have its own silence in order to exist. He smiled, said thanks, and then him and his wife went on about their day. This must be his last summer, I thought to myself.

Because I’m thinking of Michael this weekend, I will not let these short years go by without some reverence. I will not let my Monday morning cancel joy this week, and I will not sit back and let another summer fade casually by.

For a Monday

Monday mornings start with the wicked alarm
Threatening you out of bed, filled with dread
But falsely.
Because, the world is sweet on Mondays
Full of beginner’s charm
My dear you must disarm
And sip hot coffee against the cool dawn
Like fresh steps of a summer fawn
Go out into the day, and find a way
To love the world.

-Sarah Justice 2026

Thank you for reading, and reach out because I DO love to chat!

justicesarah67@yahoo.com