Patterns

Last fall we installed a small flagstone patio in the back of our house. We chose to have a pattern composed of 6 different sizes of stone, all of which would be placed in a carefully designed layout that was designed to minimize waste and extra cutting, and which would maximize visual interest. The craftsman who did the work was masterful, executing the pattern to perfection.

This got me thinking how different the result would have looked if the proportion ratio of the different sized stones were to have been altered. I realized that even a small change in the ratios would have dramatically affected the appearance of the pattern; additionally, the change would have increased waste significantly.

So often in life the seemingly simple change in a habit or pattern of behavior can result in a dramatic change in so many other aspects of our lives. For example, we buy a light-colored car, only to find that it shows much more dirt, requiring us to wash the car much more frequently. The additional washing wastes natural resources, takes extra time, and if we are going to a car wash, costs more money. Or perhaps we decide that a new hairstyle might be a fun change for the summer, only to realize that some feature of our face that has hitherto been hidden is now in full view, requiring us to do something else to hide the undesirable feature.

These small changes are not life-altering, but they can be significant. Imagine then, how much more life-altering a major change in our life can be in the long-term. We all know that certain major life events are considered to have long-lasting traumatic effects on us. A move, a new job, a new child, a divorce, or a death have the potential to dramatically alter the balance of our lives.

I thought of the patio design project in this context a few weeks ago as I dealt with the death of my 99 year-old mother. Now, my dad has been dead for 38 years, and I still feel the loss of him. I often see, hear, smell, or taste something that brings back a memory of my dad, something that he would have liked or commented upon. I miss that he is not here to share certain experiences with me. I miss having the chance to discuss things with him; things that we both would have laughed about, or that we would have been troubled by.

In the case of the death of my mom, she represented the end of the line of siblings in her family. She, and her sister and brothers, were all possessed of strong personalities, the end-product of a very strong-willed mother who had to support several young or younger children as a widow after her husband died.

As my mother started to show signs of aging, her normally slow gait slowed even more. She eventually realized that she probably should not be driving, and so she stopped doing so about 9 years ago, to the great collective benefit of the other drivers on the road. She stopped working when she was 88, because the drive to her office was becoming too much for her. When the time came for her to have to be moved out of her apartment into an assisted-living facility a little over three years ago, I became aware of the fact that her daily vacuuming, cleaning, and dusting had become much less thorough than it had been previously. She still dusted and vacuumed every day, but the shelves in her closets weren’t dusted regularly, and perhaps the very back of the closet didn’t get the extreme vacuuming that was her hallmark.

Many of these changes weren’t apparent to me at first, because she was still the strong-willed hard-working woman that I had grown up with. I don’t think that there was ever an argument in which she did not emerge the victor, no matter what her age. But, she could be charming to those who cared for her at the assisted-living facility.

The patterns of my mother’s life changed gradually, as they do for all of us. It wasn’t until the changes added up that we could look back and see the cumulative effect of all of the changes. Small changes had been made in the patterns of her life that only became clearer nearer to the end of her life.

Now, for me, I have yet another change in the pattern of my life to incorporate into the balance that I try to achieve. As with the death of my dad, the death of my mother may cause me to reevaluate certain thoughts or opinions or attitudes. I may, unknowingly, do certain things differently.

What I hope is that the changes that I might make are positive ones, which create a more pleasing design in the pattern of my life and the lives of those around me.

Like a snowflake, the patterns of our lives are each unique. They have beauty, but they are transitory. I won’t stop studying patterns and appreciating them. I still believe in the value of considering changes in patterns to achieve a more pleasing effect. But I hope that I will know when a pattern of behavior is good, and when a pattern of behavior should be changed.

Mike Snyder

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