What’s Vital Is Often Missed

So I needed to get a new driver’s license. This is one of the REAL ID driver’s license… because without it, I couldn’t fly. Now we don’t fly very often. We fly like twice a year to go see grandkids, but if I had an emergency, I could not get on a plane. And I am thinking, “This is not a good thing… so I better get an updated driver’s license.”

So I look up what documents I need, I gather them all up, and I drive out to a DMV that is kind of out of the way to try to avoid lines. I get in there and sure enough, my number is called very quickly.

I go up to the window. I tell the person what I need. She says, “I need to see your birth certificate.”

I’ve got this really old white envelope that’s really not so white anymore. And it’s kind of falling apart. I pull out my birth certificate and I slide it under the window.

She looks at it and says, “We don’t take these kinds of birth certificates.”
I respond, “You don’t take these kinds of birth certificates?… But my footprints are on it.”
“Yes, but we don’t take this kind.”
“You don’t take this kind?” I am thinking to myself, “Do I need to pull these dogs off and put my foot up on the counter… I mean, I know I have some gnarly roaches… but you could see that these are grown up versions of what is on that paper.” (I didn’t say this… I simply was thinking this.)
She continues, “This birth certificate is from a hospital.”
I am thinking to myself, “But I was born in a hospital… I would think they would know whether I was born or not.” (Again, I didn’t say this… I simply was thinking it.)
“So what do I do?” I ask.
She explains, “You need one from vital records.”
“I need one from vital records?” Now, I am hearing every word perfectly she is saying to me in this conversation… but I keep repeating back to her everything that she is saying to me (poor woman… ) because I am trying to wrap my head around everything. “OK… thank you,” and I gather up everything and put it in the not-so-white, ratty envelope.

So I call and tell my wife this. She says to me, “I thought I saw your vital records’ birth certificate.”
I said, “Where?”
She said, “In the folder.”
I said, “I looked in that folder, it’s not there. I saw info for all our kids… I saw immunization records… I saw all kinds of things in that folder… but I didn’t see any other birth certificate for me.

So I go home… and I order another one… from vital records.

My wife comes home, sets her stuff down from work, goes straight to the folder where all this important stuff is supposed to be, looks through it and pulls out my vital records’ birth certificate.

I said, “Where did you find that?”
She said, “In the folder.”

Hmmm…

Sometimes in the business of life and trying to get things done and trying to check things off on the checklist, we might miss something that is really important… even vital (as DMV would say)… even if it is right in front of us. That is why it is important to keep our eyes on what is most important and pay attention.

It is also a reason why we need other people in our lives. We can be blind to things in our perspective and attitude and we need someone else to remind us what is really vital.