A couple months back my wife and I went out to a dinner party to celebrate one of her friend’s birthdays. We hadn’t gone out in a little while, so it was a refreshing, albeit somewhat challenging affair. I had forgotten how to mingle.
We got there early, which gave us a good chance to scope out the situation, as people we had never met before started to trickle in. One by one we went through the motions of trying to talk over the loud music and learn people’s names, make enough gratuitous small talk to not come off obnoxious but to show that we sincerely care about learning more about them. There was one girl that sat across from us that we had gotten to know pretty well over the course of the night. So much so that we exchanged information to keep in touch.
Fast forward a few months later, we’ve got the typical “hey we still gotta hang out soon!” exchanges on messenger, along with the sporadic likes and comments on social media to let each other know we’re still cool. We had talks about her visiting our church because she loved Korean culture.
Around New Years of last year, I received a text from her along the lines of, “Hey! I still haven’t forgotten. I still wanna visit. I’m hoping to come sometime this month. I’m in Colorado this weekend, but I’ll be here the rest of this month. Happy New Year!”
She never came back.
She died in a car accident driving on the way back home. I still look at that text every so often. I wonder how long I’ll keep her contact information in my phone as if it’ll ever really lead to anything.
Our lives are so fragile. Yet we live each day with the assumption that there are many more days to come. Would I live my life differently if I knew I was going to die tomorrow? Would I be more gentle, more kind, more loving towards my wife if I knew this was the last day I had with her?
See, we all know that we won’t live forever. We all know that our lives are but brief flickers of light in time, yet, we live with the heart of forever. We live with all these great plans and endeavors, we have the luxury of passing time and putting things off, of letting our everyday stresses and worries get to us. But we don’t live with the idea that this could be our last day.
I’m not sure what was going through her head that day. Even in the last moments. But I know that she was a fierce woman for God who loved Jesus. And any life spent glorifying him is a life well spent.
