GIFT # 8 - What are you doing with your "dash"?

Last weekend, I attended a memorial service on Zoom. An acquaintance who lived in Kuwait had passed away after a long fight with colon cancer. He was in his late 50s. Because of the virtual setting, friends and family living in different time zones could share tributes and memories of this man. It was a touching and meaningful time together.

With every eulogy I have heard over the years, two things are consistently prominent to me. One is a reminder of how important it is to say all these words of affirmation, admiration, and appreciation to each other WHILE we are still alive. I hope that people will choose to encourage me to keep doing whatever good I may be doing, while I am still alive and still in the prime of life. What a waste to tell me all this good stuff after I am dead.

This is also why I take every opportunity to give credit where it is due and to let people know I appreciate the X, Y, and Z that they bring to me. Truth be told, some people look at me with suspicion, that I might be looking for something in return, wary that I am being nice with a hidden agenda. I have learned not to take this personally. I simply wonder what caused this cynicism to colour their lens on people and life.

The other thing that I am captured by is the revelation that it really does matter how we live. The poem called "The Dash" by Linda Ellis speaks eloquently and simply to this. The dash is what stands between one’s date of birth and one’s date of death. The dash represents “all the time they (people) spent alive on earth”. Every time I hear a eulogy, I wonder what I am doing with my dash.

Am I making a difference? Am I just occupying space? Am I living wholeheartedly or am I constantly waiting for the perfect time to do the perfect thing?

This weekend, I celebrated my birthday. Still remembering the stories I heard last weekend, honouring one who died too young, I am reflecting deeply on the poem’s last lines, “So when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you lived your dash?”

Whatever time I have left, I want to be proud of the way I am living my dash. What about you?