Precious Life ...

Sometimes it takes the saddest and hardest events in life to shock us back to what is really important.

Last Thursday, April 19, a dear friend and fellow choir member suffered the bursting of a cerebral aneurysm, and she died early Saturday morning, April 21.  She was only 48 years old.  But, oh what she packed into those 48 years!  She experienced life with full enthusiasm. She took care of family and friends to the extent that she made it her personal mission to be custodian to many. She loved to travel, and she spent many hours in her car driving from place to place. She was in Colorado when she passed away, and it took several days for her to return home. Another choir member said, “Well, that’s just Stacy.  She’ll need to stop off several other places on her way home.”  This is so true.  Stacy loved Facebook, and I would be totally worn out and fatigued just reading her posts when she would be on one of her traveling jaunts.  Certainly no grass grew under her feet.

If there are lessons I learned from my friend, Stacy, they would have to be centered on just taking time for others and being available.  Stacy didn’t "work", and I used to think how much easier it must have been for her to be in so many different places. But now on thinking this through in more depth, I’m not sure it was a time issue, but more an issue of just making herself available.  Yes, I work.  I work more than 40 hours per week, so I do have a time restriction during those work hours. But I can still be available.  Available with a smile, available with a hug, available with a quick call to encourage, console, or for a quick “hello and thinking of you.”  I can be more available to schedule and plan events with my friends. Available to “step out of the box” and experience new things.

When someone so young, and with so many more opportunities “to do things” passes, it causes pause and reflection of how life is being spent. Stacy had recently posted on her Facebook, “Since none of us really know when the end of our journey is coming; love, laugh, and live like there is no tomorrow.”

Yes, Stacy, Life … Precious life.  God bless you and keep you.