I know I’ve blogged this before, but death is not something I think about. I live my life the best I can, create as many memories as possible and know where I am going when I die. But, in the past 48 hours I have had two people I know pass away. One was not an unexpected death but he was our age. He was divorced and didn’t have any kids. The other death was very unexpected. He had been married 42 years and had a few grown children and lots of grandchildren/great grandchildren. I can say that both men had a quiet, but strong faith in the Lord. I can say they both served in the military. I can say that I respected both men and that they were both kind to everyone. Other than that, I can’t give you a lot of information about either men, despite having them over for dinner (one was technically at our house when I was growing up) on an occasion or two.
That got me to thinking about when I pass away. So often people are glorified in their death. Everybody becomes their friend (sadly, this seems to be more the case the more tragic the death is). When I pass away I want people to keep it real when speaking of me and my life. I don’t want people to say I was patient or the life of the party. I want people to say I was flawed, but tried to be the best I could every day. I want people to say that there was no doubt that I loved my family and friends. I want students to say that I held high expectations of them but that I respected them and pushed them to do their best. I don’t want people to make me seem like someone I wasn’t. I don’t want “friends” to come out of the woodwork who can’t say much about me. The older I get, the more I realize that having a few true, close friends are more important that having a lot of “friends” who barely know me. As this quote says,
“It’s not what we have in life, but who we have in our life that matters.” — Unknown
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