the wheel of life
Life had a funny way of making you realize how much other people mean to you and how short your time here truly is. Today, I attended my first ever Baptist Funeral. The mother of a friend and colleague passed away and to show support, I rearranged my day to make an appearance.
After getting horribly lost and calling for directions, I slipped into the already in progress service and grabbed a seat in the rear of the humble cinderblock church to listen and pay my respects. Nobody noticed my arrival. It was a great service, full of passion and love.
After the service, my friend turned to assess the crowd of mourners and saw me. He did a double take, unsure if he really saw me sitting there, since I’d never been officially invited and he didn’t even know that I’d been informed. He nodded his head a little as if to say “Thank You” acknowledging me in the crowd and shook my hand on the way out of the church.
I gave him my sincerest condolences about his mother’s death and slipped quietly out of the crowd to return home. It wasn’t my place to be at the gravesite, but I wanted to at least pay respects to a woman that raised an amazingly warm and caring person, filled with wit and intelligence.
Driving home, thinking about the small token I’d just done made me realize that I’ve become an extremely self-centered and selfish person. Since my life revolves around me, without much input from friends or family, I’ve gotten into the habit of taking others for granted and putting my needs first.
Time to get out of my life and put others first for a while. So when you really need to merge into the lane in front of me, flip on your turn-signal, and you can be sure that I’ll let you merge in comfortably. Hey, its the least I can do.