The Book of Life

Life is like a baseball game with a crazy pitcher who never pays attention to the signals the catcher is giving. You can plan, scheme, have it all down, and the very next pitch is a strike, and you’re one step closer to “out!” Nothing is guaranteed in life, nothing! You can get your test results from a doctor, be assured you have thirty more years, and die in the parking lot on the way to your car. That’s why each day is important. A high school cheer leader swerves in front of a semi truck, while texting, yet the homeless man goes on, and on. The pitcher never pays attention to the catcher’s signals.

As you get older you become very aware that this cannot go on forever. Those little aches and pains that used to arise on occasion seem to be a daily occurrence, and you know in your heart that this is not going to change. Oh, you alter your habits, maybe, but that’s only a temporary fix. What works today will not work tomorrow. As you round the corner after sixty or so, if you’re smart, you accept that the end really is near. You will have good days, but then, there will be those days that aren’t so good. You’re not sick, you’re just getting on, and that’s the way it is. 

The fact is age has noting to do with it. When a baby draws its first breath the clock of life begins to tick. Notwithstanding some tragic accident, your biological program is in place, and what you eventually succumb  from is already there. You have your grandmother’s heart, and your father’s blood sugar. It doesn’t matter if you die from a diabetic coma at eight or eighty, the program will play out. Like the song says, “God only knows, God makes His plans, the information’s unavailable to the mortal man.” 

When an old person dies we grieve, but we accept. If the person has been sick for a very long time we are actually relieved, and glad they are no longer suffering, but if the person is young we find ourselves raising our tear fill eyes to the night sky wondering how any of this makes any sense. If you are religious you can find at least some answers in that. If you are not, you must look within yourself. Without the help of faith it is a long and lonely journey. 

When you lose someone they leave a mark on you. The loss will always change your life. If your mind is healthy you will grieve, and you will “get over it,” but you will never forget. Years after you will find yourself on the porch alone at night, and some sound, some smell, some thought, will still bring a tear to your eye, and you suddenly realize, “She’s still HERE!” Somewhere in your memory, and in the memory of all the people you know, your loved ones leave little bits and pieces of themselves, that seem to grow with time. You will tell children stories of your loved one. In time the pain will subside, indeed, you will find the funny stories seem to dominate, and the sad ones, while not going completely away, seem to take a back seat.You count the triumphs, and not the defeats that invariably come to all of us. 

And one day someone will be telling those children stories about you. Write your story well. Live each day as if it were the final chapter in your book of life. Fill your book of life,with wonder because that’s what you really leave in the end. That book can comfort, or hurt. It can range from “We don’t talk about that,” to “Oh, and there was this other time he. . . “ 

We lose so many during our lifetime. But, contrary to what you may think, those losses build us, they do not tear us down. As each book of life goes through final edit toward publication, those chapters fill,  and life  becomes better for those people you leave behind. And it’s good to cry. When you cry over the loss of a loved one it is natural and healthy, but when you cry over the loss of someone else’s loved one it is beautiful. It means that you have connected with someone. It means that their loved one has even touched you, though you may never have met, and in some unexplained way, two souls have touched, and that person left you, too, a page, or a chapter in their book of life. And that’s the book of LIFE, not death! Death is only the publication of the book. At some point we all go to press. 

Life is fleeting. Life is a gift. In a moment of time the sun can burp and blast all the air from this rock we fret over all the time. Live each day, indeed each hour, as if it were your last. The great editor in the sky stands at the door, waiting for copy. We all have a dead line. Set the coffee pot at night, but there is no guarantee you’ll be there to drink it in the morning. And cherish the memories. Just imagine how lonely life would be without them. We are only here for a short while, so write your book of life well. Make it a best seller!