The sun beams through the clouds and warms the early April morning. A cool breeze is gently blowing. I drive to work with questions in my mind, but few answers. In a world as beautiful as ours, why do we see so much heartache and pain? Earthquakes, wars, famine and flood. Nature, in all its wonder, attacks us humans with almost as much ferocity as we attack each other. It’s a pretty awesome place to live, most of the time. People are pretty awesome most of the time, too.
We’re born into the world with our own little clique of folks that raise us, love us and care about us. We’re so little and frail, but they take care of us and teach us about the world and try to give us the skills and materials to make it out in the world on our own. We go out into that world and do stuff. They watch. With cautionary glee and excitement, they pray for us. They give us of their own things, time and wealth, just to help us get on our feet and find our path. Sometimes they watch us grow to be strong and healthy adults, sometimes we don’t get there at all. Yet still they care. And we care about them. That clique of folks, called a family, grow older as we mature. They pour out their wisdom to us, whether we listen or not. We think we know so much.
The older I get, the more I know how much I don’t know. I know that sounds like a cop out. It’s not. I’ve just adjusted to the fact that I’m a very small man in an extremely large universe. Some of the things that I thought I knew in my twenties turned out to be quite bogus. I started being a tad cynical in my thirties, then, in my forties, the realization that I may not be as smart as I thought I was crawled up and slapped me in the face. Not coincidentally, I lost my first wife, Sam, and my Dad just before I turned forty.
Losing people in our lives isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing people do, in my humble opinion. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sudden surprise, or a long, drawn-out thing that you have time to think about and plan for. You can’t replace those people in your lives. The loss is real. It hurts. To grieve for a lost child, a parent, a sibling, and a friend is the single most painful thing we humans do. Because we love them. They were a part of us, and then they’re gone.
So, what do we do? That’s a really good question. I refer back to my original statement about how much I don’t know. There’s no cure for death. We’re all going to leave this world. We folks left behind will live our lives without them. That hole won’t be refilled. It will remain missing, because the Good Lord only makes one of each of us. Others will be in our lives, not to fill those holes, but to help balance us out, and to love us through this life. The best way I can put it is this: we have to live through death and treat each person in our lives with love and respect. Say the things you want to say, tell them that you love them. Let unimportant things go. Show them love and enjoy them while you can, because none of us are promised another day. When the sun shines bright through the April morning clouds, and warms the world around us, we need to appreciate it, and appreciate each other. When the ones you loved are gone, remember them. Then love the ones you are left with, with all your heart. Isn’t that a pretty good idea, anyway? I think so.
God bless y’all!
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Rolling Stones 