Over the past few days, I have seen Mary be cyber eulogized in our Yahoo group. All the emails had a kind remembrance or remark on what a sweet and caring person she was.
These women have touched so many lives with their thoughtful love and friendship. And as death has a way of doing, it made me think of my own mortality.
If I were to pass away, what of my life would be remembered? What have I done to leave a smile on someone else's face? How should I be living my life everyday?
I started to think of how much time I spend on truly trivial things when I could be serving others. Of how often I worry about my looks or the cleanliness of my house. I have been to a number of funerals, and no one has ever gotten up and said, "Oh ____ had such a nice clean home. It looked straight out of a magazine." or "______ finally fit into those size 6 jeans."
It is not what we do for ourselves but the interactions we have with others that changes the world. And so I think about what I've done this week. How much has been to maintain the status quo of my life and how much has been devoted to making someone else's status quo a little bit better?
I invite anyone who has lost someone to comment below. How did that person leave this world a little better than they came into it?
Having lost blogger, reviewer, and LDS friend from the LDS Forever Friends yahoo group this week, I have to send my love to Sister Mary Walling who passed away this week. I'm so thankful for her kindness and support. She shared her life with everyone; her family around her and her friends all over the online world. She was a great example of serving others and enduring to the end. Mary, you'll be missed.
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven’t lost anyone in my life recently, your post made me think of a good friend of mine who suffers from MS. She has been in a nursing home, wheelchair bound, since she was young woman. She was recently hospitalized with an infection and when I went to visit her I could tell she wasn’t feeling well, but of course, the first words out of her mouth were, “How are you doing? How’s your family? How’s your writing going?” Every time I tried to ask her about her she’d just say, “Oh, well, I’m doing alright. How are the kids doing?” It makes me pause every time I think about complaining about anything.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. It’s so important to remember. :-)