A Life Gone……Reminds Me to LIVE!

As many people know, I lost my mom last week.  Thank you to the SO MANY who shared their thoughts and prayers with us, they were all greatly appreciated and felt.  My mom had a great life with her almost 92 years with 6 children, 23 grandchildren, and 19 great grandchildren.  I’m very grateful for the amount of time we had with her and I’m well aware how many people have nowhere near the wonderful amount of time we had with my mom.

But she’s gone…..and that hurts.

In as much as I fully and completely realize and understand how fortunate I was, the loss is immeasurable.  The pain is real.  I guess I thought mom (or moo-moo as I called her) would just be here…..well….forever.

Silly thought, that.

As we took her to the final resting place I looked out over the tens of thousands of headstones at Calverton National Cemetery.  There she was laid to rest with my dad, who was in the military.  Almost as far as the eye could see was a sea of bright white tombstones.

We had my mom’s service and we left.  To heal.  To move on.

Sleeping well has not yet fully returned to me, as I ponder the loss of probably the most influential person in my life.  The visual in my head continues of all those tombstones.  They all represent at least one, and in many cases, two or more lives.  Lives that are now gone.  I believe, as my faith teaches me, in a ‘beyond here’; someday we all will be reunited.

But my thoughts are on the lives lost, who once lived as represented in the sea of tombstones I witnessed in a military-type cemetery.  Lives….gone by.  Not just here, but in many other places as well…..lined with cemeteries.
Millions and millions of lives who have walked this earth and are now gone.

What did they do to leave their mark?

You see, we all are given the wonderful opportunity to actually DO something with our lives.  The choices are limitless.  But we can all start to live with a positive attitude.  With the attitude that this day will be better than yesterday and that we each have the ability to make our life better for not only ourselves, but for others.

If one lives this way, I would imagine that there is little room for anger or bitterness.
Perhaps a little bit less of the way I think is better than the way you think.   And less of the thought process, the things I do are better than the things you do.  I have often stated that we all need to ‘just not do nothing’.  I would hate to get to my final days and look in the mirror and see staring back at me a man who could have done more—-that is just unacceptable.

I want my tombstone to read; did it all fully and to the best of his ability.  Anything short of that would be a shame.  There is so much to do, so much to actually LIVE and experience.  Why waste it complaining about the things we cannot change.  Change the things we can, influence those who will listen, stop waiting…….because if you’re not IN IT…….you’re not in it.

I want to fill up the days I have because the time that we are granted is surely as finite as knowing the sun will rise.  I intend to fill it….with good……with positive….with things to enjoy….with things I CAN change.  Moo-moo would want that of me.  I want that of me.
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