The Dash

Our neighbor died not to long ago.  I thought of him when I heard his lawn being mowed on his side of our backyard fence by the lawn service, on the regularly scheduled day.  I thought of how he sat in his backyard and read and relaxed with his cigarettes.  He suffered a lot of pain, on many fronts, from his Marine time in Vietnam.  A few days before lung cancer claimed his life, at 62, he wrote a statement, part of it was in his newspaper obituary and then it was read at his funeral.

"I was born January 1, 1949, I died in Vietnam January 11, 1969."

How sad that is his summation of his life.  

Today I thought of this moving poem...

The Dash

By Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak

At the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

From the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth

And spoke of the following date with tears,

But he said what mattered most of all

Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time

That she spent alive on earth

And now only those who love her

Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,

The cars…the house…the cash.

What matters is how we live and love

And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;

Are there things you’d like to change?

For you never know how much time is left

That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

To consider what’s true and real

And always try to understand

The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger

And show appreciation more

And love the people in our lives

Like we never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect

And more often wear a smile…

Remembering that this special dash

Might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is read

With your life’s actions to rehash

Would you be proud of the things they say

About how you spent your dash?