The Greatest Lesson I Almost Didn't Learn

When I was but a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. When I got to be twenty one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. ~ Mark Twain

Live Full. Die Empty ~ Les Brown

I was raised in the church. Or at least, in my early years. My grandmother was a Sunday school teacher and heavily involved in not only the church activities, but the community as well. She would go and help the old ladies that couldn't make it to church anymore with stuff around the house. Yardwork, bringing them groceries, cleaning up the house. Things that they couldn't get to on their own anymore. And since I was the son of a single mom and spent a lot of time babysat by the aforementioned grandmother, I ended up spending a lot of time around some of the elder folks as well.

I lived a lot of my young life bored to tears, in other words.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I was being given an early glimpse of the end of life and the perspectives that go with it. It used to just drive me crazy to have to sit around and listen to the old folks go on about all the things they wish they would have done, boast about the surely exaggerated things they did do. Over and over it was the same old thing. I used to get sick of hearing it. It wasn't until later that I really heard what they were saying.

What all of them were saying.

And more importantly, what they weren't saying.

I didn't hear them complain of things they did. I always heard them list the things they wish they would have done.

All independently of each other, in their own style and speed, they would start off talking about the good old days, and inevitably end up strolling down wishful lane and how if they just had more time to do the things they had never gotten around to... A choir of the wise, singing a tale of warning to those of us who think our lives will happen by "getting around to it, eventually."

I have the words "Live Full, Die Empty" tattooed across my upper back after hearing a keynote speaker thunder them into the audience, and it hit me like a thunderbolt.

So whenever you, gentle reader, see me revel in my own adventures, especially shortly after they have occurred, and ask, "Why is he always out there like that?"

I have to ask in return, "Why are you not?"

Until next time....

Angelus