Ah, the beauty and immediacy of the internet. Need directions? Lost a phone number? Want to look up technical information? Lost the instruction manual? Just a few keystrokes, and you've got what you need.
Newspapers, and even the evening news are old news.
But some news.......well, some news you can wait to hear. And today, over the course of just a couple of hours, I got the sucker punch. From a professional e-journal: A former, deeply respected professor from graduate school passed away eariler in the week. Via facebook.com: a classmate from high school had lost her battle with lung cancer.
When a respected professor passes away, it's sad news. You think back on the time you knew the person, and what you learned or how they influcenced your life. Maybe, as I did, you think about being just a little better at what you do to honor a teacher's life. Although sad, at the age of 65, a person has had a life. Children, maybe even grandchildren. A chance to do something meaningful, leave a legacy. There is never enough time, of course, but more than 60 years you have be thankful for.
When someone your own age (that being somewhere near....39) dies, that's an entirely different kind of thing. Someone with a husband who is now alone. With 3 young children who are motherless. That's someone who wasn't finisihed, not by a long shot. And it's so, so sad.
While I had not spoken with her in years, she was an indelible part of my memories of those oh so painful years. We saw each other every day in homeroom for just a few minutes, and were certainly not BFFs. But we touched base each day to chat/complain/confide. She was popular, smart and beautiful, with such enormous promise. And now she is gone.
And it's the kind of thing that makes you question what you are doing on an everyday basis. And a reminder to me to live more in the moment instead of worrying what lies in the future; to do something to make every day matter.
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