On Sunday, All Saints Day as it were, a person I have known my whole life lost her battle with cancer. Since her passing I have been thinking about the last time I saw her and at the time I didn’t know it would be the last time. It was probably a Wednesday evening; it was probably a bell rehearsal. I imagine that was the last time many in my church community saw her. None of us, not even she knew it would be for the last time.
Many things we do in life for the last time we don’t always realize it will be the last time to do it. None of us think about the last time we wore a diaper or drank from a bottle as child. Those “last times” are probably more significant to our parents but even those last times are important as they mark an end of one phase of growing and the beginning of another.
For all of us there will be a last time to drive a car, play in a park, and see a movie. On the day my friend passed, she was preceded by a church full of people in Texas who woke up that morning for the last time. None of them realized they were going to church for the last time, saying prayers and praising God for the last time. Had they known that any of those things would be their “last time” would they have done something different? Eaten something different for breakfast, driven a little slower, maybe slept in a little longer?
The next time you hold a door for a stranger could be the last time they enter that building. The next time you wave to your neighbor could be the last time they see you. The next time you smile at a homeless man, yours could be the last face they ever see. What have any of us to lose by making our everyday actions count for something? And what do we gain by making an effort to be better people?
The truth is most of us never get to know when our last time for anything will be. We shouldn’t wait for a mass shooting or the death of a friend to help a stranger, to stop and smell the roses, or slow down in our chaotic lives and appreciate all that we have. When our last breath comes, when our heart beats for the last time, it’s too late to make a legacy, too late to say all that went unsaid, too late to make right any wrong we leave behind. We all need to live as if our last time to do anything is now because the “next time” is never guaranteed.
Rest in peace my friend.
End Transmission