Why Wait Until Then?
I recently posted some information about a college football coach who passed away unexpectedly. After his passing, there were a lot of stories about him. As stated in my earlier post, Mike Leach was a unique individual. That made for a lot of interesting stories.
All of that prompted me to think about the fact that each of us is unique. No two people are exactly alike – even “identical” twins. That means that there are stories to be told and memories to be shared about each of us. It also means that there are stories we can tell and memories we can share with our families and friends. Most of those stories and memories typically indicate our love and/or appreciation for somebody.
I’m wondering why we sometimes tend to wait until after somebody has passed from this life before we share with others how much we loved/appreciated/respected them. More importantly, I wonder why we often fail to tell the person himself/herself.
There’s an old joke about a wife complaining to her husband about the fact that he never tells her that he loves her. His response, according to the joke, was, “I told you that I loved you when we got married. If I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
Sadly, that “joke” may not be funny to a lot of people. Far too many people may pass into eternity having never known about the positive impact they had on others.
This post may be a little shorter than most of the ones I usually publish. There are at least a couple of reasons for that. First, there is no reason to belabor the point.
The second reason for this post being somewhat brief is that I’m thinking that all of us might make good use of a little extra time. Maybe that time could be used to make a phone call, write a note, send a text, or even make a visit. It could very well be the case that each of us has people in our lives who would like to know how much they are appreciated. It could even be that some of those people might think that they are making little or no difference in the life of anybody. The short time it would take to let them know that they are wrong in thinking that could be an investment of time and effort that pays huge dividends.
So – is there somebody like that in your life? Is there somebody about whom you could tell great stories after they are gone? Are there great things you could say about them after they are gone? Would you like for them to know how much they mean to you? Do you think that you might regret not having taken advantage of the time you now have with them after they are gone?
If so —
why wait until then?
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
