This is a slightly adjusted piece I wrote a few weeks ago for another
website.
If I live to see nothin' happen..... Ma and Grandma used to say this all the time before or after mentioning something they wanted or needed to do. "Live to see nothin' happen, I'm going uptown this weekend......I'm getting the plants out next week---live to see nothin' happen."
It was a testament to the power of the unknown and an appreciation for the blessings of life we are given everyday. As simple as it sounds, waking up in the morning is at God's will.
Live to see nothing happen meant nothing was taken for granted. On the farm in Whitakers, North Carolina I guess they believed in this phrase more than anything. As sharecroppers, they had little assurance about what the next day, month or year could bring. In fact, we migrated to New York (I was five) after learning that the landowner deceitfully calculated that Grandma owed him hundreds of dollars for a dead mule. Earlier that year, I imagine that Grandma had uttered those words more than once----
Live to see nothing happen. It was a snowy Sunday in January of 1965 when we left the farm for Poughkeepsie.
If I live to see nothin' happen..... I grew up hearing them say this in all its mystery. Only now do I understand how it acknowledges a power which we do not have. We can do everything in our control to plan our next steps but there's an infinite power that controls our destiny.
Live to see nothin' happen speaks to more than literal life; it speaks also to the present and how we can treasure what we already have.
Ask that
you live to see nothin' happenbut live life fully while you can.
