This week’s story is about a man who forgot what life is really all about and became a workaholic.

He would work twelve hour days and most weekends and even when he wasn’t working he spent all his time thinking about work. His wife tried to slow him down by pointing out that they were drifting apart and never seemed to spend any time together. He said that he realised that they were not as close as they once had been, but she always wanted his time and that’s
the one thing he didn’t have enough of to give her. He was vaguely aware that his children were growing up and he was missing their childhood. His children complained about books he wasn’t reading to them, games he wasn’t playing with them and trips out, he wasn’t taking with them. After a while they stopped complaining, or expecting their lives might be any different, as he told them, “I’ll be more available, when things settle down.”
Sometimes, when he felt guilty he would say to himself, “I’m doing all this for them.” His wife suggested he take Sunday off and accompany them all to Mass to help him find inner peace, but he replied, “There’ll be plenty of time for that sort of thing, when things settle down.”

His doctor told him that he had elevated blood pressure and very high cholesterol and must slow down and take things easier, but he told the doctor, “There’d be plenty of time for that when things settle down.” Quietly, efficiently, irresistibly his body was preparing for all systems to shut down. Then one morning his wife woke at 3.00am and he was not beside her in bed. She went downstairs intent on dragging him back to bed and saw him sitting in front of his computer, his head hanging low as if asleep. She touched him but he did not respond and when the paramedics arrived they told her he appeared to have suffered a massive heart attack. He was quite right, things had finally settled down...


Diane Law