Life is Fleeting

Ryan’s grandmother passed away last Tuesday, and we've been out of town for the visitation and funeral on Thursday and Friday. She was 90 years old and had lived a long, good life. I’m sure she saw the world change quite a bit from 1918 to 2008. She was the wife of a policeman / amateur pilot / rental property business owner / knew-how-to-fix-anything-kind-of-guy for 70(!) years. She raised four children, and later had six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren (two more on the way will make it eleven).

This picture is from two years ago. I always appreciated how bright eyed and animated “Grandma Alice” was in her interactions with my kids. (I remember being mortified once at Thanksgiving when Brett walked up to her and pretended to “shoot” her with his finger. I was so relieved to see that she immediately “played dead” and then “shot” him back when he wasn’t expecting it!) After knowing her for almost 20 years, I will most remember the twinkle in her eyes and her genuine interest in knowing what was going on in our lives.

On another note, as we were packing up the car to leave town on Thursday, Ryan happened to talk to one of his vendor reps about some business. Ryan mentioned that it was the anniversary of 9/11. It turns out that this guy was actually in a meeting on the 39th floor of Tower One when the first plane hit on 9/11. Although he obviously managed to get out of the building before it fell, his story was haunting and brought back all the memories of that day in 2001.

Of course, while we were gone we watched Ike decimate parts of Texas. Once again, we will see miles and miles of changed lives from a hurricane.

And, today, we saw two beautiful 15-year-old trees split and fall from the high winds (ours and our neighbors’).

Four days, four reminders of how fleeting this life is. How precious this day is. How the memories we leave behind us are the only things that cannot be erased. How, whether it comes when we are ready or not, we will be facing eternity one day soon.

Somehow, my “to do list” doesn’t seem very important right now… I think I need to write a new checklist that includes things like play cars with a small boy, talk about hopes and dreams with some big girls, spend some quiet, focused time with the love of my life, and spend some time with my Lord.