The Real Riches in Life

As I was driving down the street to my home, I saw an old Asian woman walking beside a bike. She wore a traditional sun hat and dirty old clothes.

(This is a picture I found on google that would give you an idea of her appearance)

Attached to her rusted bike were six large garbage bags full of soda cans. Some bags were attached to  her handle bars and others to a small hitch. Two more were attached to the seat of the bike. I slowed down because I was curious about this woman. It was the day before trash pick-up and garbage cans lined the street. I made the conclusion that she was gathering cans to recycle for money. I watched as she struggled to get on her bike with the imbalanced weight of all the cans. She fell off of it the second try and began walking beside the bike as bags of cans would smack her legs. That's all I did, I just watched. I pulled into my driveway and walked into my comfy cool home. Immediately, I asked Sean for some cash so I could run and give some money to this woman. But we didn't have any cash handy and then soon I became busy with other things. However her image kept coming back into my head. Did she have a home? Is this how she supported her family? 

Recently I have been working two jobs while Sean works a full-time job and goes to school at the U of U. Our lives are, "hello" and "goodbye" to each other. William is tossed from one set of arms to another. We have worked and worked for our living. And we live well compared to most people. Especially that woman who was walking the streets sifting through trash. We have a home, two cars, food, air conditioning and our needs are met. We also have many bills that we are still working to pay but overall we have been blessed. However, at what expense? We can make ends meet, and we have some extra to use for wants. (Don't get me wrong, both of us do not work so we can have pleasures). I have learned everything has a price. Everything has a cost. What have these choices been costing our family?

That question has haunted me since the first day I took William to a nanny. Our lives since then have been tortourous. Always running, never together, and sometimes miserable. I discussed my concerns with Sean and he agreed but we didn't see much other options except for us to find better paying jobs so I could work less. We have waited and waited and we have prayed and prayed for guidance of how to cut down the burdens that were affecting our family.

We kept working week to week and we were taking things one day at a time. At the end of June, our wonderful nanny told us that she would be moving away to West Valley. This kind of jump-started our motivation to change our situation. We didn't want to send William to a daycare and we felt like we couldn't find anyone better than Ane for a nanny. We began looking for different options and we have made a decision very different than typical LDS families or any family. I accepted a full-time job at the hospital and Sean quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad and finish school full-time. This will allow us to spend more time as a family and it gives Sean more time to study. I'm excited to have time to spend together again! I will only be working three 12 hour shifts a week and I will get to be home the other days. The best part is that William will always be with a parent!

The image of the lady and the cans will always be a part of my memory. What are the real riches in life? A scripture in Matthew 6 says:

"19 ¶Lay not up for yourselves ^atreasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves ^bbreak through and steal:

 20 But lay up for yourselves ^atreasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor ^bsteal:

Our real treasure is our son, William. We intend to spend our time and energy on him and not on becoming "rich." I have been with many patients on their death beds and I have never heard a single one say, "I wish I worked more during my life." Or, "I wish I made more money." The one thing that I hear repeatitively is, "I wish I would have spent more time with my family." Sean and I do not want to live our lives with regrets. We do not want to return to Heaven and realize that we left all our riches behind and took our treasures for granted.  

From here on out when people ask our family what we do for a living, we will simply reply, "live!"