He gave me his songbook. I didn’t ask for it; he just gave
it to me. One day when our group finished singing at the Center, my
friend said he had something for me, so I walked out to the van with him and
his wife, and he handed me a binder filled with songs he’d sung over the years
with different gospel groups.
This might seem like an insignificant gesture but it isn’t,
and the reason he gave it to me almost brings a tear to my eye. He gave it to
me because he is old. He gave it to me because he knows there will come a day
when he will not need his songbook anymore. He’s lived more than a few decades;
his voice is raspy; and although he didn’t say it, he’s doing the math.
I have some other friends who are doing the math, too. Some
people I know are making preparations for the future in different ways than
before. Where they used to buy stuff to use up, now they’re using up the stuff they
bought and never used.
Some are depleting stashes of fabric by sewing dresses for
little girls in Africa. Some are emptying palettes of paint by filling up
canvases with splashes of color. Still others are purging their houses of clutter
accumulated through fifty-years of marriage and deciding on suitable heirs for possessions
once held dear. Some are choosing executors to carry out their last wishes and close out
their bank accounts. And some are giving away their songbooks.