My phone buzzed with a text from my brother. It was not exactly a complaint. More like the kind of hint only a brother can give... that perhaps I should spend a little more time with our parents. They are getting older after all.
.. Fair point 🙄
Except while I was reading his message, one of my daughters was already waiting for me to draw the next princess for her. Apparently the previous princess was not enough. There was another princess urgently requiring my attention for the imaginary tea party.
Then my wife checked if I had completed something on our household to do list. Rather unnecessary, if you ask me. I am a man of my word, you see. Three months of reminders was more than sufficient.
And somewhere in between all this, there was work waiting too and pastoral call to make. There are days recently when it feels like everyone has a legitimate claim on the same few hours I have. My children are still young. My parents are getting older. My marriage needs attention. Work carries responsibility. And living in Singapore somehow makes everything feel like it should have been completed yesterday. I sometimes find myself wishing I had more time.
Then for some reason, I remembered a novel I read years ago called The Invoice. I don't remember every detail of the story anymore, but one idea from it stayed with me. It made me think about something I rarely consider when measuring how good or difficult life is, that is Sequence matters. Not just what happens to us, but when it happens.
Someone can struggle financially when young and become wealthy much later. Someone else can begin with plenty and lose it towards the end. A couple can go through the pain of miscarriages before eventually having a house full of children. Another can begin surrounded by family and experience painful losses much later. If you simply took an inventory of their lives, you might find many of the same things. ... Money. Children. Health. Family. But they would not have lived the same life.
The sequence changes the story. And perhaps it changes the value of what we have too. Forexamplem having money while your parents are healthy enough to travel with you is different from having the same money when they no longer can. Having enough to create memories with your children while they still want to go everywhere with you feels different from having much more when they have lives of their own.
The money may be the same. The moment isn't. Maybe that is also why I am becoming less certain about this idea of "arriving." We often imagine arriving as reaching a certain amount of savings, building enough financial buffer, paying off something, or finally having enough that we don't have to worry so much. There is wisdom in preparing for the future. I certainly want to do that. But Jesus said that "one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." So whatever arriving means, it cannot simply be a number. You could eventually reach that number and discover that some of the things which gave the number meaning are no longer there.
And perhaps time works the same way. Recently, Anna, my older daughter, started having weekly spelling as part of her preschool. So throughout the week, I would find little opportunities to sneak her spelling words into our normal conversations. I was surprised to find that she actually enjoyed it. The other day I told her she should wear proper shoes. "I want to wear Crocs." "You can wear Crocs to walk, but it will be difficult if you need to climb a hill." Then I paused. "Oh, by the way... how do you spell hill?" She giggled immediately because she knew exactly what I was doing. "H I L L." It has now become a little game between us. I wait for opportunities throughout the day to weave her spelling words into whatever we happen to be doing. She knows what I am up to, but somehow that makes it even more fun.
And strangely, I enjoy it too. It takes time, of course. And that is the funny thing, that this is the same time I sometimes wish I had more of. Perhaps richness is not only having more resources. Perhaps it is having people worth using those resources for.
One day I may finally have the financial buffer I wanted. Work may become less demanding. My weekends may become quieter. But Anna probably won't be waiting for me to ask her how to spell hill. And my mother probably won't be sending me another link asking me to buy something for her from Taobao. I might finally have that quiet Saturday I keep wishing for. I'm just not completely sure anymore that I want it to arrive too quickly. Maybe arriving is not always about finally having more. Sometimes it is recognising what you still have while everyone is still here.