The "What Ifs" of Our Lives...

Mary Higgins Clark always teaches us to think in terms of "What If..."

I want to share with you a "What If" I had last week.

As a high school student down south, with high ambitions, I followed in the footsteps of a very wonderful guy whom I shall call Jim Smith.

Jim was the brightest, the most gifted, the most true-blue kid in the school and I tried to follow him every step.

I dreamed of being Mrs. Jim Smith, as well.

After he graduated, he went on to become the model minister of his church, then on to a bigger world.

He married a nice, homebody girl, a much nicer, more submissive person than I would ever have been.

Decades passed.

Later, in New York, I heard that Jim, now the famous and erudite Dr. Jim Smith, was then the head man at an internationally famous and prestigious institution for high/higher/highest learning.

Our paths never crossed, but I often read about him in the paper.

I hadn't thought about Jim in years...

Then, last Saturday night, while enjoying my Chinese takeout of tofu and hot and sour soup, I turned on C-Span - and lo, there was a panel on some big talking head program down in Foggy Bottom, with their top guest speaker, a Very Important Man.

Yep, you got it, Dr. Jim Smith!

Of course, I held my chop stick in mid air and watched...

Hmmm. As I listened to the guy pontificate, and tried to buy into how wonderful he was... is... will always be... all the gestures, head turnings and posturing we see on tv every night from THE V I P PEOPLE ...

I couldn't help going back to those earlier days and thinking, oh-my-god-what-if...
.
As I watched this man, showing us how inportant a man he was, etc. etc. etc., all I could think, was ...

What if... I were his other half now, and had to listen to him ... night after night after night after night after night ... year after year after year... and nod my head on how great and important a person he Is, Was and Evermore would be...

Oh, my, what wisdom, those thoughts of Mary Higgins Clark...

Thelma Straw