Columnist Charlotte Lankard ends weekly 'conversation,' says 'listen to your life'
“In the long, long trip of growing, there are stops along the way,” is a line from a song written by the late Fred Rogers, and I’ve reached a stop.
For the last 24 years, since August of 1999, I’ve been in touch with The Oklahoman readers once a week. When Joe Hight invited me to do this, he made two suggestions. Make it useful to people or families — and, as I protested that I was not a writer, he told me, “Just write like you talk.”
So, every week I’ve sat down to have a conversation with readers. I know if we are going to make it through life, with its twists and turns and unexpected happenings, then we have to help each other, and we do that by sharing our stories. While it is true, we can learn from other people’s mistakes, some of us have to be the other people.
I’ve written out of my own life experiences — only child, preacher’s daughter, granddaughter, teen-ager, college student at age 18 and again at 30, friend, wife, mother, victim of a near fatal accident at age 40, survivor, therapist, mother-in-law, grandmother, divorced, second marriage, wife of a cancer patient, widow, dancer, columnist, and a surprising and delightful long-time partnership with my sweetheart and best friend Gene Rainbolt.
Some of these experiences I anticipated, some I planned, and others came as a complete surprise.
I have not attempted to be an expert, simply a fellow struggler with you on the journey. Through sharing my own experiences, I’ve learned how much alike we all are.
As I have written, you have responded. Your letters, phone calls, emails and visits to my office have surprised and delighted me. Some have made me cry. Others made me laugh. All have humbled me.
I’ve had opportunities to meet many of you. Always I am left with a keen sense of gratitude.
A recent letter came to me from a reader, Mary Doezema. She thanked me for my inspiring and realistic attitude. (I loved that!) She said I always reminded that life is not about perfection. It is becoming. She remembered a column I wrote years ago when I explained to my grandchildren that as we get older, our bodies sometimes need to be “mended.” She laughed with me after I’d written this past February about Gene and I celebrating our birthdays — a total of 178 years!
I wept as I read. Tears of gratitude. Then she gave a gift to me. A quote from Frederick Buechner, author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, theologian. “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
I knew a weekly column would be work, but I never dreamed it would be so much fun. And I never imagined it would go on for 24 years.
So today, I simply want to say thank you — to The Oklahoman, for the adventure; to readers, because you have become my friends.
My task now is to manage the aging process and the changes that come with that, but even though I am no longer in the newspaper, I’d still enjoy hearing from you anytime you have something you want to share. My email address remains the same: clankard@cox.net.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: The Oklahoman columnist Charlotte Lankard says goodbye after 24 years
