REFLECTIONS
Monday June 29, 2015 9:26 amThis weekend we took a short trip through parts of WV and Ohio. The main two reasons for the trip was to see a few people we haven't seen in awhile and to visit grave-sites that we have not been to recently. For the most part we accomplished both of those things.
Our brief visits with different people were all pleasant, and we did go to a total of 7 cemeteries and lay flowers on twelve different graves. (That latter statement is what has prompted me to write a blog this morning.)
As flowers were laid by the stones and I thought about those I knew well and even the three I never met (Deb's grandmother, my great grandfather and great grandmother) I had the same two thoughts. I wondered if they ever did anything that really mattered in their entire lives? And secondly: were they happy? (It was that last thought that consumed me!)
It's funny because many of them I knew very well... but I still could not answer that question for any of them.
As I looked at the dates of their birth and the year of their deaths I kept a running tally in my mind and when the last grave was visited I saw that these twelve people had lived a combined 800 years. 800 years! And still I wondered, how many of those years were any of them truly happy?
The youngest, Rhonda... died at 31 and the oldest, Herb, lived to be 86. As an aside, I have never liked my own name... but, if I had been named Herb, I would have hated that name even more.
The average life lived by these twelve people was a little under 67 years. So, if I am average... and I believe I am, then I have approximately 7 more trips around our Sun left to me. And it is not any fear of my own death that troubles me this morning, it really isn't. In many ways I am like a line in a favourite song of mine, "I have no fear of death, it brings no sorrow." Nope, what troubles me as I sit here and hunt-and-peck my way across this keyboard is that damnable question which I silently asked all of them as I carefully read each name... were you happy???
One last thing: I had a few errands to run this morning so I go out to the car, start it up and the radio is already tuned to 103.1 and the song that is playing... Big & Rich: Run Away With You! D***! D***! D***! I turned the stupid thing off and completed my errands in silence.
Great start to another day :)
posted by Robin Johnson @ 9:26 AM
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