Christian Living
Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday February 1, 2006
An ad for Classmates. Com set me to reminiscing about some of the kids I was acquainted with way back in the days of Noah. I don't think I could handle a current year book barrage of opportunities to watch the children of my youth grow to dotage and then pass from the scene. I am sure that such would remind me of my own mortality.
I was the guest speaker some years ago at the fiftieth reunion for a High School Class. What a downer!!
Oh, get me right it was a beautiful evening with a good meal and reminders everywhere of mortality gaining ground and now close enough to breathe icily on our neck!
The lightest part of the evening was noticing the folks, the men with hairpieces that looked as though they cost every bit of fifty dollars, the lady who kept everyone holding their breath as they waited, fearful or hopeful that a string on her girdle would break while she was dancing the night away, most in the room looking as though they were a drawing from the prodigious pen of Gary Larson.
One gut wrenching ceremony that fine spring night was the "Wheel of Remembrance." I also participated in this ceremony at the state convention of Rotarians one year.
The Wheel of Remembrance ceremony honors those who have fallen, passed on, walked on or in English died since the last meeting. The Fiftieth Reunion wheel included all the known departed mates. A long service!!
In addition to the placing or removing of a flower on or off the wheel, at the reunion a table was set up and decorated on which was placed the high school picture and alongside it the latest picture available. What a bummer!!
As the survivors walked past the table, an older man stood near the end of the table and began to weep. Many others were in the pre-weeping stage. I asked the openly weeping man why such intense feeling, did he know the lady well in the photo? He told me, "Larry, no, I hardly knew her at all. I knew her name, the old house where she and her family lived, I never particularly liked her. But as I walked by the pictures here tonight and read the obituaries, I knew that I had missed a chance given to me by God to have known each of these classmates of mine and perhaps contributed to the quality of their life and they to mine. I guess I am hurting at what I missed." I have heard similar comments at the funeral of people who lived together for fifty years.
A young man asked me, "Dr. Lilly, what is the best thing I can do for my family?" I told him the best thing he can do for the people in his life it to get to really know them, and to be unselfish enough to permit them to really know him. As I grow older, grayer and balder, I know how great the waste that we are to busy for each other.
Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.
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