Next Year For Nine Years

Nine times now, somebody has said next year.

Sometimes your daughter says it. Sometimes your son in law. Once one of the grandchildren said it, which was the year that landed hardest, because a child saying next year does not know what a year is.

And every time, it was said with love. That is what makes this difficult to talk about. Nobody in your family is putting you off. They mean it in June and they mean it in November and then the year turns over and it gets said again.

And you say, that would be lovely.

Here is the thing you have never said out loud to any of them, and I am going to say it for you so that you can hear it in somebody else's voice first.

You are running out of next years.

Not in a dramatic way. Nothing is wrong. But you have done the arithmetic that people your age do quietly and never mention, and nine more of these is not a thing you have got.

And you have decided that saying that would be unkind. That it would put a weight on your family that they did not ask for, and that it would turn a warm thing into an obligation.

I want to talk about that decision, because I think it is costing everybody, including them.

So teach us to number our days

There is a prayer in the ninetieth Psalm that people quote at funerals and hardly ever use for its actual purpose.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12, King James Version)

Read it as a request rather than a lament, because that is what it is.

You have permission to count, and asking God to teach you to number your days has never once been the same thing as being morbid about them. Psalm 90:12 makes the counting a thing to be taught rather than a thing to be resisted, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the teaching in a woman who has been counting privately and calling it something to be ashamed of.

Look at the purpose clause. Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. The counting is not the end of it. The counting is what produces the wisdom, and the wisdom is practical, and it shows up in what a person actually does with a Tuesday.

Which means the arithmetic you have been doing in private, and feeling faintly guilty about, is the thing the Psalm asks for.

You are not being gloomy by knowing how many years you have, and no part of that counting has ever once been a failure of faith. It is written that numbering the days is what wisdom comes out of, which is why the honest sum is the beginning and not the end, and the Spirit of God is what turns a private count into a plain sentence.

And notice who is doing the asking. Not a young man. This is the prayer of somebody who has watched a generation go by, and the whole Psalm before it is about how short a life is and how the years get spent.

There is nothing polite about that Psalm. It says what it sees.

You are in good company saying the true thing about time, and the plainness of it has never once been ingratitude. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman speak accurately about her own years without it sounding like an accusation, and Psalm 90 spends its whole length on exactly that subject.

Next year is not a date

Now the practical part, and it has nothing to do with your family's love for you. It has to do with a sentence.

Next year is not a date. It is a category. And a category cannot be entered into a calendar, cannot be booked, and cannot be prepared for.

So when your daughter says next year, nothing at all has happened. She has expressed a wish, warmly and sincerely, and the wish has no edges. And next June she will express the same wish with the same warmth, and it will still have no edges, and nine years will have gone.

That is not neglect. That is the sentence doing what that sentence does.

You are able to replace a category with a date, and doing it has never once been you making demands on people who love you. Psalm 90:12 has a man asking to be taught to number rather than to be reassured, and the Holy Spirit is what moves a woman from a general wish into a specific week.

Here is the part that will surprise you, and I have seen it many times. Your family is not waiting for you to be reasonable. They are waiting to be told what you want.

Because they do not know. They think you are content and easy and do not want to be any trouble, which is exactly the impression you have worked hard to give them for forty years. And so they have no information, and in the absence of information they say next year, which is what a kind person says when they have nothing specific to offer.

You have information nobody else in this family has, and keeping it to yourself has never once been the same thing as being easy to have around. It is written that wisdom follows the numbering, which is why the speaking is the wise part, and His Spirit is the one who steadies an older woman while she says something specific out loud.

Say the date, and let them hear it

So here is the assignment.

Tell one of them a specific date you would like, and let them hear you say it.

One person. The one who is easiest, not the one who is most in charge. And a date, not a season. A month and a week: the second week of May. Or better, a day.

And here is the wording, because the wording is the whole thing. Not, it would be lovely if we ever managed. That is a wish, and they have heard nine of those. Say: I would like us to go somewhere the second week of May. That is what I would like.

You are able to say what you want in a plain sentence, and wanting something specific has never once made you a burden to your own children. The Spirit of God is with a woman who says a true and simple thing at a kitchen table, and Psalm 90 asks God for the numbering that makes such a sentence possible.

And then stop talking. Do not explain it, do not apologize for it, and do not say it does not matter, because it does matter and they can tell.

The silence after it is where the work gets done. Let them have it.

You are handing this family something they have never once had from you, and giving them a real answer has never once been the same thing as putting a weight on them. Psalm 90:12 makes the numbered day the source of wisdom rather than of grief, and the Holy Spirit is the one holding the quiet steady after you speak.