THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

I don’t have enough time. This is what I say to myself.

I don’t have enough time to write the books I want to write, visit the places I’d like to see, spend time with all the people I care about. I don’t have time to read all the books I should have read by now. I don’t have time to try all the good food that is out there. I don’t have time to learn Spanish as well as I’d like. I don’t have time to rest. I don’t have enough time for sleep.

This past week, my family celebrated the lives of my uncle, Andy, and his wife, Bea. They both passed away last winter. We had a combined funeral and burial for them in the church where Andy had been baptized 94 years earlier.

Bea was also 94 when she died, just a few months after Andy. Bea and Andy married when they were 66 years old. It was a first marriage for them both, and they had almost 30 years together.

Remembering their lives made me think about time.

Because both Andy and Bea had full lives before they met one another. Bea lived in the Bay Area of California. She worked at an important job, traveled a lot, ate at the new restaurants, loved to hike in the mountains and go out for cocktails.

Meanwhile, Andy was a farmer. He inherited the family farm, and he grew soybeans and milked cows and went bowling in the small town where he lived. He had dozens of nieces and nephews, and he told countless bad jokes.

After they retired, they met, and eventually they made the brave and somewhat surprising decision to marry. Growing up with nine inquisitive sisters could not have made it easy when Andy started to get serious about Bea. The remaining sisters — along with the rest of the family and the small town where Andy had lived all his life — were titillated by this exciting development. For the first time in his more than 60 years on the planet, Andy was obliged to provide updates on his love life. I cannot imagine it was easy. But I do remember when he made it official.

He wrote in the round-robin that circulated to all his nosy sisters, one after the other:

“The question is not to Bea or not to Bea. I’ve been to Bea twice. Now, she is coming to me!”

And she did. She came to spend the summers on the farm, and the two of them spent winters in California. They volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, and they contributed to The Nature Conservancy, and they were active in their church and spent time with their family. They did a tremendous amount in those 30 years. They spent nearly every moment together.

And when Bea was diagnosed with terminal cancer, all Andy could say was, “I was supposed to go before you!”

And he did. Shortly after Bea entered hospice, Andy had a fall and broke his neck and died shortly thereafter. Bea slowly faded away. We told her that Andy had died, and we were not sure she would remember. But she did not ask about him. She died in the small town where Andy had been born.

So we remembered their lives, and we celebrated their love, and we missed them terribly, and we knew they had lived their lives in a way we could only hope to.

There is never enough time. But Andy and Bea had time enough for a very good life.

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