My great uncle passed a couple weeks ago and the memorial service was finally on Saturday. He was 80 years old, married for 47 to his lovely Nadine who he fiercely protected and cared for.
I didn't find out until he passed that he was the reason that my mother married my step-father. Her husband, my father, had been running around with his "girlfriend" and other baby-momma and basically continuing his 3-5 year assault on my mother's emotional health. When she was presented with interest from my step-father. She called my great uncle Sonny, and cried about how she loved my dad, he was the one, why couldn't he just act right, blah, blah, blah. Sonny said, "you need to get over it. That man (his nephew) does not love you. You are two young to wait on him, since he may never ever act right. You have a man that wants to be with you, that wants to raise your children, and to be the spiritual head of your family, pull it together and let that man love you." She paraphrased but said that it was the most hurtful, direct, helpful and wise advice she had recieved throughout her whole ordeal with my dad. It worked and at least in part b/c of that conversation, my mother managed to get over my dad and wound up in a loving happy relationship.
The brother giving the talk at my Uncle's memorial brought up something that has since stuck with me. The average life span is about 23,000 days (63 years old). He compared it to having $23,000, how would you spend that money? Would you frivilously spend it, on the hot item of the moment, would you hoarde it all and save it for a rainy day? Or would you invest it and let your money make money? Relating it back to our lives do we spend our limited amount of time on frivilous pursuits? Are we simply allowing the time to pass us, or are we doing things now to ensure us an everlasting future? I think that resonated with me b/c 23,000 is such a relatively small number. I always tell myself that I have time to pull it together, but I'm already nearing the halfway point, I'm at 10,220!! What have I been doing with my days?
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3 comments:
my condolences.
great questions at the end.
My condolences on your lost, but your mom sure was blessed to have him around.
The question reminded me of a song from the musical Rent:
"525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?"
definitely sending my condolences to you and your family...
i love this story though because its really points to the fact that its time to put our BIG GIRL face on and just woman up and make the BEST of what life we have...and live it...not holding on to the past or what ifs or anything like that but just taking it for what it is and just living!
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