More, Please

The farmers are picking corn here in the Midwest. I drove along I-70 today, past corn fields ready for the harvest, and I thought about my father. It’s impossible for me to see dry cornstalks in the fields without thinking of him on Election Day in November, 1956, when he tried to unclog the shucking box of his picker without first shutting down the power take-off. The spinning snapping rollers caught one of his hands between them. He tried to free that hand with his other one, and the rollers caught it, too. I find myself thinking of that moment when he could have made the smart choice to shut down that PTO, that moment when his life and mine could have turned out very differently, that moment when grace was still possible.

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A year ago today, a blood clot traveled to my brain, and for a while, I lost my vision, my speech, and the use of my right arm and leg. All is well now. No impairments outside of a penchant for corny jokes, which one friend jokingly says must be a result of the stroke. Not true. As another friend points out, I’ve always been corny.

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Like my father, I know how life can divide into before and after.

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I spotted a food truck recently called “Egg Rolls and More.” It was doing quite the business. Someone had made a hand-written sign on a piece of notebook paper and taped it to the glass behind which the workers worked. It said, “No More Egg Rolls.” For some reason, that really amused me. I guess all they were serving was the “More.”

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More, please.

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More life, more love, more time, more everything.

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Lose something, or someone, dear to you, or come close, and you’ll never stop wanting.

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Harvest what’s yours for the picking. Don’t delay. Nothing about the future is guaranteed. Live in the moment. Celebrate the love that surrounds you. My friends, you bless me every day.

10 Comments

  1. sarah corbett morgan on September 24, 2013 at 3:37 pm

    Bless you too, Lee. No truer words were ever said; life is short and we have no idea what might be around the next corner. That scene with your father just sent shivers up my spine. Awful. Awful. Awful.

    So glad you recovered completely… except for the corny jokes.

    • Lee Martin on September 25, 2013 at 2:20 pm

      Thanks for your comment, Sarah. Alas, ’tis true. I never met a corny joke I could resist.

  2. deni naffziger on September 24, 2013 at 6:03 pm

    No words were ever truer/more true. In fact, we have many befores and afters and if we’re wise, we are aware and made wiser still. I’m so glad you are healthy again. Take care. I hope to see you soon. –Deni

    • Lee Martin on September 25, 2013 at 2:18 pm

      Thanks, Deni. All best wishes to you.

  3. Glenda Beall on September 26, 2013 at 7:20 pm

    I am a new viewer of your site from Kathy Rhoads. So glad I found you.

    • Lee Martin on September 27, 2013 at 9:04 pm

      I hope you’ll come back often, Glenda! Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to leave a comment.

  4. Naomi Kooker on September 26, 2013 at 7:47 pm

    Lee — wonderful wonderful post. As I writer I’m so used — or used to wanting — to create the “do over” of life through writing, but there is no do over. There is nothing to “get back.” It’s now indeed. Thank you so much for this and your continued commitment to your blog. And Thanks God for you! So grateful that corniness is a before AND after. (Thanks God comes from echoes of a dear friend who is French, who always tacked on the “s” for many merci’s.) Mercis.

    • Lee Martin on September 27, 2013 at 9:05 pm

      Hi, Naomi. Thanks for the good words, even the French ones!

  5. Vicky Lettmann on October 3, 2013 at 12:18 pm

    Love this post, Lee. Reminds me of the one I just wrote about losing my mother and going home to spread her ashes. We are all connected in this way. Blessing to you too.

    • Lee Martin on October 4, 2013 at 6:52 pm

      Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog and to leave a comment. You’re so right about our connections.

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