What should you say?

I am not sure just how to start this blog. Those who read this and are my age will understand. Those who are younger may have a tough time understanding, but they are the ones I really want to write to today.

As you grow older, you have an increasing sense of your own mortality. The realization comes to you that you will not live forever. Worse than that, you have no guarantees of even one more week, even one more day.  The problem is that this is no less true in your 20s and 30s than it is in your 60s and 70s. It is an illusion to think that you cannot die, that you will somehow have many decades left on earth.

Why am I writing about this? I am writing this because we need to see life from both sides. You are mortal and have no guarantees of even one more day. But the same is true for those around you. So why is this important? I don’t want to walk through a cemetery and pass by a gravestone with regrets. Nor do I want anyone walking past my gravestone in the same way.

I have written about this before and spoken about forgiveness and the need to forgive. That has not changed at all. We need to forgive because the day will come when there is nothing left but the gravestone. But there is much more than just forgiveness that is left undone or unasked or unsaid.

Have you expressed your love to those around you? Have you passed on compliments to the people you love and want to know that you appreciate what they are and what they are doing? Do the people you love know how you feel? What is there that you should say today that you may not be able to say tomorrow because you will not have tomorrow?

This all sounds morbid, I know. But it is absolutely true. We have no guarantees. I know someone who lost a 13-year-old this past week. I also know of a person in their mid-forties who was found lifeless. Perhaps they fell. Perhaps their heart failed. I do not know. I just know that both of these were a reminder to me that I had better not count on even one more day and that I had better think about saying the things I need to say.

Whether you are young or old: Express your love. Tell someone you are proud of them. Say something positive. Speak the truth. Ask for forgiveness. Give forgiveness. Do today, say today whatever it is that you might never be able to say again.