Letting Go of Worry - Perfect Day Two

It was also hard not to become worried about getting into our seats at the Hannah Theater in time, but we were there ten minutes before the curtain rose. I love the Hannah because it’s so intimate and feels like being in a night club with the bar and cushioned lounge seating in the back of the theater. We were in the second row, and it was fabulous. The first thing I said was, “they’re not dressed in period clothing” because the men were wearing tuxedos from the 19^th century, but they managed to pull off Elizabethan garb for the kings and the queen and her maids in waiting. I had to let go of that—the theater company used what they had. And then I let myself be pulled into the magic of Shakespeare’s language expertly delivered.

And I thought about Dr. Tener. He didn’t answer my last letter. He admitted he wasn’t doing well in his last letter, and now . . . silence. Death is the menace that drives us forward and then stops us in our tracks. We are so immortal. It was a sort of worry, me thinking about Dr. Tener. He was so full of life and vibrancy when he paced back and forth in front of the class seated in Satterfield Hall dramatically playing the roles of Macbeth and Hamlet and Rosalind, his cowboy boots and jeans and turtleneck sweaters setting him apart as much as his passion for words. He was a poet, an architect, an actor, a builder, a gardener, but mostly he was a person who I loved for his way of looking at life.

We immortal beings are always trying to beat Death. With my Dad, we’re worried that if we don’t fight this Cancer and beat it, we didn’t love Dad enough. Because we worry about his pain and suffering and what life will be when he’s gone and what it is that he will have left other than the memories we hold dear. We need to do our best, and let go of worry because we have limited control.