Client: It’s been a good life

He’s 93. 

He doesn’t hear very well, he can’t walk alone after his fall last month, and his hands are swollen and blotched with purple. When I met him, he had just been moved from rehab into assisted living, and was sitting up in a rented hospital bed reading John Grisham. 

We had never met, but when I walked in, he greeted me with a smile. I explained that I was there to get his room set up for him and to make his new space feel homey and cozy. He thanked me and repeated my name a few times to make sure he wouldn’t forget.

I learned his wife died earlier in the year. That he spent his career working for Exxon.  That he had moved around some. That he has read every one of Grisham’s books. That a few weeks ago, he tripped and fell, and that one moment put an end to his independent living. 

I had a hard time understanding some of what he talked about, but this moment I heard with crystal clarity.

“It’s been a good life.”

I’m going to guess that his life was not without suffering. Without hard. Without confusion and indecision, conflict, and disappointment. But looking back along that long road of years, he sees beautiful.

That’s everything, isn’t it?