This morning, on my way to work I was inundated with parents being willing to break traffic laws and what I can only assume was an attempt to make sure that their student wasn’t late to school.
That got me to thinking about this time of year and all of the “lasts” that will be remembered by graduating students.
Their last Monday.
Their last Tuesday, etc.
This year has been a cacophony of lasts for them. Everything they did was their last time to do it in High School.
We applaud that.
Celebrate it.
And we should.
But today’s post is going to be less celebratory. Yes, I have multiple other posts actually ready to go, but I felt I should interrupt the regularly scheduled post to talk about our lasts.
When I woke up this morning, my first thought was this could be my last Tuesday to ever wake up. Not in a morbid way. Not in a way that I hope it is my last Tuesday, but there is a fact that it could be my last Tuesday.
Now that we’re done with the feel good emotions, let’s talk about what brought me to this moment. If you’re a NASCAR fan, you know that Kyle Busch died last Thursday. He was 41 years old and he died in a race car simulator. He leaves behind a wife and two young children.
He was my favorite NASCAR driver to the extent that I watched NASCAR. I liked him because I thought he was extremely talented and people either loved him or severely disliked him, a reality that I can relate to on a much smaller scale.
I can’t help but wonder when he woke up last Thursday if he knew that would be the last time he had the opportunity to see a sunrise, what would he have done differently?
Would he have gone to the simulator?
This question seems to create no small amount of stress for people when I bring it up, but I think it’s an important question for us to consider.
What would we change if we knew today was our last day?
Would chasing the promotion at work still matter as much?
Would we still tolerate the person who is abusing us?
Would we attempt to make up with someone?
Would we not change anything?
An ancient writer, one wrote that if we learned to number our days, we will have a heart of wisdom.
I think about how many days I have left often. Time seems to go faster every day. It seems every day, that I know more people who have passed away.
A few weeks ago a man I knew here locally died in his sleep at the age of 40.
I can’t help but wonder what did they leave undone?
I have lived 19,089 days to this point.
How many of those days have I squandered?
How many have I truly sucked the morrow out of?
I don’t know how many I have left.
In twelve days, I will celebrate my Mom’s birthday.
Four weeks after that, I will mark her passing.
The point of this post isn’t to discourage anyone. It’s not a quiet signal that I’m depressed or need help.
The point is that living a life of meaning means we recognize how fleeting life is.
To live a meaningful life, we need to live intentionally.
We need to remember that someday we are going to die and we have no idea when that day is coming.
We need to choose wisely the things that matter.
Most of us know what those things are already.
We know what we need to do.
We know what we want to do but are too scared to actually try.
We know the boundary we need to set.
We know the apology we need to give.
We just assume that we’ll see another Tuesday.
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