It’s amazing all the things you

h      e      a      r

when you listen.

I first met her at the gym.

We are early birds.

She and I are usually the only ones in the pool at 5:30 a.m.

She does water aerobics as I water run.

We talk. . .We Listen. . .We Hear.

She’s not always there. . .she has a hard time sleeping and sometimes after a long night, falls asleep right before she would normally get up and come to the gym.  She tells me it’s the worst part of getting old and at 84 she should know.  All idle chit-chat since July when I joined the gym

.     .     .u n t i l.     .     .

You heard that Kent died. . .that’s why he hasn’t been here; I know that we all have a time to go but he was only 57; I heard he got an infection in a heart valve and couldn’t recover from it; I never could understand that whole when it’s your time, it’s your time thing.  I think I’ve asked that question a million times since my daughter died.  She was a flight attendant on a plane crash in Newfoundland in 1985.  Look, I still wear the earrings she wore when the plane crashed.  I had a dream that she died face down in the snow and was told that her body was in tact in the snow, face down. . .I’ll never forget the night at the nursing home when I was taking care of a patient and she told me how she kept having out-of-body experiences and was afraid that she might not come back to her body some      time. . .and then she began telling me how my daughter was happy and alright; she told me that she didn’t like the fact that we turned her bedroom into a storage area and of incidents that no one, not even family would have ever know. . .because of that I believe in heaven but it doesn’t make me miss her any less. . . .

Hmmmmmmm. . .she had been aerobisizing and I had been water jogging way past our times to stop. . . .

I’ve never told another person what I shared with you today. . .I now know why I met you, why you came here all those months ago. . .it was all leading up to this morning; I needed to tell this story

. . .and I needed to hear it,” I finished her sentence.

We went to the gym to

WORK    IN

instead of

WORK     OUT

and we got in a much different kind of

s   h   a   p   e.   .   .   .

We talk. . .

We Listen. . .

We hear. . .

You hear the most amazing things when you listen. . .

when you listen not to respond

not to hear

but to

complete a story that needs to be

told

heard

acknowledged

experienced

known

s          h          a          r          e          d

Sometimes. . .

when you’re ears get a work out

it’s the heart that gets better. . . .

What. . .what did you

s  a  y?