A Missed Friend but Not a Lost Life

This past week, a dear friend died. I got the call and went to comfort the family.

When I arrived at her apartment, shock draped the room, and confusion flooded every conversation. What happened? Why? How?

Yet, the person was gone. As I sat waiting for authorities to finish the efficient business of death, I looked around.

A grandfather clock struck midnight with its banging announcement of a new day. On a side table lay a calendar with notes of the past and the future. Appointments were coming, and birthdays to celebrate.

But a life ended. Appointments could no longer be kept, and mortal clock hands stopped.

It was a stark contrast. A life ended, and life continued, with clocks that kept time for a life that had no more.

Moses reflected on the same in the only psalm that bears his name.

In Psalm 90, Moses grapples with the realities of life. I suspect he wrote it as he approached Nebo and his final glimpse at life’s great goal, the land of promise.

Life is like grass. The morning dew kisses it, but the noonday head withers it. Life is a bird that settles for a time on a branch but soon flies away.

In the funeral-worn verse, Moses faces what we all face.

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10, NIV)

Life seems long but is a bubble that bursts. Gretchen Rubin points out, “The days are long, but the years are short.”

Greek philosophers took to the Latin term, “Momento Mori.” It means “Remember, we must die.” A person can interpret it in two ways.

It could mean life is so short that I should dread its end. Some do. They want to check off a bucket list that includes climbing Everest and diving on the Titanic. In the end, time runs out, and something remains on the list, undone.

But others say, “One day, life will end, so use it well.” Find the things that make the days worth living. Then, when the clock continues to chime without you, you can say, “I lived.”

I changed lives in a small way. I pointed the young in the right direction and comforted the hurting.

Those are the people who we remember,

I will miss my friend because she will no longer grace our lives. Yet, I know how she lived, how she fed hundreds of children, and how she guided so many younger people in her own way.

She is missed but remembered. Isn’t that what we all want?