I just got word that a friend has died. He was one of those friends who is actually one’s parent’s age and who is not a “friend” in the sense that we did a lot together or ever saw one another socially or even had all that much in common. He was a friend because he was a member of my church, said he enjoyed my sermons, attended a men’s breakfast with me and others every month for years, and I’ve known him and his family for three decades. Our conversations would always be positive until his Alzheimer’s started kicking in. And I am impressed, once again, at how short life is.
His birth certificate will show that he was in his upper 80’s. I used to think that was a long life. And in terms of the typical life span, it is. But I used to think that 60 is getting up there in age but now know, for a certainty, that it isn’t. Just yesterday I was a boy playing in the fields out on the farm. I remember with crystal clarity, as though it just happened, my high school graduation and my college days and my first love, each of our babies being born, THEM graduating…
Our lives are but a mist in the scheme of time. It is REALLY important to make each day count. Today – do something that you will remember tomorrow (not January 18 – the tomorrow that is the years to come). Spend the day being kinder, saying something encouraging to someone, calling a friend from long ago just to say ‘hi.’ Hug your spouse or someone you love and hold on to him or her longer than you have for a long time. Do these and other things to such an extent that you will, tomorrow, remember today as being something special. It is.
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