Ever have one of those days? How about one of those months? Maybe even longer. In any event, we all have those moments, no matter their duration, where everything seems like it is pulling us down into a deep, dark pit. No matter who we are we can safely say we understand the feeling of alone. The feeling of not again. The feeling of what now.
I guess throughout my life I’ve not been a glass half empty kind of guy, or a glass half full one either. I think I’ve always seen it as just half a glass. Sometimes good, and sometimes bad, but half a glass all the while. It's hard to explain why we sometimes change our point of view, especially if no life changing incident spurs that change, but we can probably agree that we do see things differently over time.
For instance, when my daughter was born, my adrenaline based behavior was subdued mighty quickly. Vickie probably had a little to do with that, too. If momma ain’t happy… Anyway, the last few years have been up and down, but mostly up. I’m really blessed in a lot of ways, and I recognized that I think. One day though, when I least expected it, my dad was gone. I had always understood death and dying, first because I have been a police officer for many years and it comes with the turf, and second, I knew Jesus and I also felt really confident that death is just another beginning. Case closed.
Well, I’ve been to more funerals than weddings, and they never bothered me that much. Dad’s was another story, and not for the mushy kind of good reasons either. Without dragging out a long story, we had our differences, and good times, too. However, we weren’t best friends and didn’t chat every day on the phone. Then one day, he’s gone. No more jokes. No more arguments. No more period.
As cliché as it may sound, we really sometimes don’t know what we had until it’s left our lives. Pop was gone, and we weren’t as close as some families, but that’s exactly what I missed. The opportunity for that to happen. I didn’t know every story from his youth, and those were laid to rest with him. Death brings that finality that we really don’t comprehend until it’s too late. For some reason we never seem to learn except the hard way, by fire, in a time when we just aren’t prepared to handle it.
I was looking through some old pictures just moments ago, and through the stacks of books Pop left behind. I was hurting thinking about the times shown in those pictures, and wondering to myself if I should start reading all those books just to maybe understand a part of Pop I never knew. A moment later, I’m thinking all the words in the world won’t do that, but here I sit now writing some more words.
Enough glum thoughts and horrid writing, and on to something worthwhile. The best moment I ever had with Pop was ironically right after my stepmom Joyce passed away. Pop was very low as can be expected. I was spending a week with him after the funeral, and we were sitting there talking, which was something we seldom did for long. We usually were either arguing or telling stories, and not so much in between. In any event, before I knew it Pop was opening up and we were talking about his childhood, his regrets, and his faith. I was just mesmerized like I was reading a great book, with the story unfolding, and hanging on every word. After all the times we had talked, we found a commonality in our faith that brought us closer for the last few years of Pop’s life.
I’m not enough of a story teller to have a great and important moral lesson, but here are a few things to think about: First, the person you’re angry with right now may be the person you share a “greatest moment” with. You won’t know until you get past anger, and enter reconciliation. Second, despite the obvious reality that you too will one day die, it WILL happen before you know it. Savor the time. Hug your kids, and your friends as well. Tell them you love them. Call somebody you miss. Don’t have regrets. Last, there’s only one constant, and that’s Jesus. He did the hard work so you don’t have to yourself. Believe. Accept. Trust. Repeat.
