Photo-A-Day #1468
Tonight Allison and I went with our friend’s Neil and Andrea to the wake for our friend Meghan’s Mom. A real testament to the legacy of a person and their character can often be seen not in the money they made but in the people whose lives they touched. We arrived to see a line stretching across the parking lot at 6:45pm. We saw the family at 9:45pm when we saw the family. Certainly Meghan’s mom, Nancy, touched many, many lives.
Steven Covey’s second habit for highly effective people is “Begin With the End in Mind”. I can’t quite remember what Covey said in the book (I need to re-read the 7 Habits soon) but I can say that as we drove home my mind went right to that chapter title. To me this means that you should think about your own wake and funeral.
Who will be there and what will they say about you? Will they spend 3 hours in line to pay their respect because they know you, your children, your grandchildren? You have a role to play in all of that and I think that the more you give back of your time, talent and to some extent treasure you leave a legacy that is very rich. Clearly Nancy left a very rich legacy.
Drew, you are entirely right about that. I once read your life can be described by the dash that is between the date your born and the date you die. What makes up that dash is what you have done in your life time. Hopefully we have touched the lives of many and left some impact on the people we have known. It sounds like Megan’s Mom stuffed a lot into that little “DASH”.
Dad,
That is a great thing to think about, that little dash, what we can fill that with. Meghan’s mom certainly filled up that dash with family and friends and giving of herself. The line to see her one last time never shortened until very late in the evening. We can only hope that we lived our lives helping people and touching their lives in a positive way so that they would care enough to see us on our final day.
I totally agree. We are here to touch lives and share our love with others. We must ask ourselves how many people’s lives have we touched with love.
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Baba,
Exactly. That is really the point of life, not the most toys you can amass but the lives you can be part of and make better by being a part of them.
Events like these are God’s subtle way of reminding us to make the most of our lives touching and helping other people, though not necessarily in a big kind of way, but enough for them to smile and see God’s hands through us. Then we can say we have lived according to his glory.