This week I heard the suggestion that all discontent is couched between the two shores of What Is and What We Want. This winter I wasted a lot of mental energy wishing that the weather was different than it was. It was too cold and I had feelings about that.

Too cold for what?

There were birds and animals that lived outside, and I never heard a single complaint. Perhaps they had no expectation that deviated from the thermometer. 

At my aunt's birthday party I chatted with a cousin from Vermont. I asked if the winters bother him. He looked as if the thought had never occurred to him. He has come to accept the weather and finds beauty in it. Let's review. His driveway was snowier than mine, his heating bills were higher, and the outside temperature decidedly lower, yet he was content. 

The other day I went to sing to a woman who is not long for this world. A group of eighteen women and one man arrived to serenade her as she transitions to her eternal home. Between tunes the grandchildren told stories about her. 

"She cooked with me," one young man said with tears in his eyes. "I guess that's why I love cooking."

I sighed. We never lived close enough to relatives for my children to know my mother. All they got were her last four years when she could barely get out of the chair. One summer when we made the twenty hour trek from Florida I launched into lively conversation with her. Then my five year old tugged on my sleeve.

"Who is that lady?" My heart sank. He did not even know who she was. How could he have a happy childhood without sweet memories of his grandparents?

But a friend told me she had never expected to be close to her grandparents. There was no gap between what was and what she aspired to for grumbling to slip in. 

The vows John and I took included the promise to cleave unto each other. That sounds like an effort to close the gap.