The milestones start with the day you are born -- your birthday -- and continue for the rest of your life.
Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, graduations, moving in, moving out, moving up, retiring -- the milestones only end with a tombstone.
I've experienced a bit of both this week.
Today, I celebrated my 9th wedding anniversary with my wife. Anniversaries remind us of previous events in our lives, and in this case that's a good thing. And the higher the number of the anniversary, often times the memories are all the more pleasant because for one, we remember less clearly, and for two, because it reminds us of different times in our life. Times when our dreams and expectations for the future were different. Not necessarily better, just different.
Of course, the other nice thing about wedding anniversaries, at least, is the chance to spend a few hours reacqainting ourselves with that person we fell in love with in the first place.
Now, for all the memories piling up anniversary milestones brings, it also draws us ever closer to that tombstone.
That I was reminded of with the death of a co-worker this week. Mr. K, as I shall call him, died at the age of 59 after a year-and-a-half battling cancer. And might I say, even 59 seemed much too young to die.
But the good news is Mr. K was well-prepared for that tombstone day. "I won't live one day less or one day more than the Lord says," he often stated. He had a faith that was unshakable no matter the circumstances, and enjoyed the milestones of his life all along the way, down to one of his favorites, the Indy 500 just a few weeks ago.
And while I don't know what his tombstone might actually say, the things I have heard and read all echo a respect for the man, respect for someone who not everybody agreed with, but for taking a stand for who and what he believed in, for daring to be different.
May the milestones of our lives lead people to say something similar about each of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment