Because We Take Nothing With Us...

I heard this poem last Sunday.... and I've been thinking about it a lot since then.. It's called The Dash and is written by Linda Ellis... and it goes:

I read of a man who stood to speak,

at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

From beginning to the end.

He noted that first came his date of her birth

and spoke the following date with with tears.

But he said what mattered most of all,

was the dash in between those years.

For the dash represents

all the time she spent alive on earth.

And now only those who loved her

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;

the cars, the house, the cash,

what matters most 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 is 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’ve 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 being read,

with your life’s actions to rehash

would you be proud of the things they say

About how your spent your dash?

(By Linda Ellis)

It was the first time I was hearing the poem (and what a beautiful poem it is)... but it wasn't the first time I had wondered about what people would say about me should I drop dead today all of a sudden. In fact, the book I am current reading is Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom, gifted to me by a friend... and the entire book is about the author obliging a request by his Rabbi to do his eulogy upon his death.

I sit in a coffee house overlooking a busy road in KL as I type this, I see hundreds of car passing by.. I see the sun setting... I see people hopping in and out of cabs and buses. Around, there are a couple of smartly dressed men sitting down drinking coffee, discussing some high powered corporate maneuver or something...Aaaahh yes... of course. Work never stops calling... even as the sun goes down. Everyone wants to leave their mark in this world... everyone feels like they need to do something in order to be remembered or acknowledged in their time on earth.. everyone wants to feel like they made a difference. Some seek to fulfill that through their work, like these men.... obviously believing at some level that what they were discussing and planning was of some significance. Others fulfill it through the community they are in by helping the poor and needy or by doing charity; soup kitchens, humanitarian missions, community projects......... and some through the people they come in contact with, by getting involved in a personal way, by being there in the most critical times, by helping out...person by person in biggest of efforts and smallest of gestures... It's our own way of preserving our existence on this earth. None of us want to think that after being made from ashes, we return to ashes.. with doing nothing worthwhile in between beyond having existed. We all want that dash to have meant something.

In the book I'm reading, the dying rabbi said that when babies are born.. their hands are clasped. A baby's instinct is to try to hold on to as much as possible as he can, always clasping, always grabbing. But as we grow older and weaker and eventually pass away.....we do it with palms open....

Perhaps because we learn that we take nothing with us.