OPINION:
A few weeks ago, one of my best friends from high school, whom I had lost track of in the long and busy tunnel of time, died while in Europe from complications associated with Parkinson’s disease. He was young enough that his unexpected (although not untimely) death was a wake-up call for those of us from the same approximate vintage.
Time is undefeated; each of us will be called before the judge of all things to account for our lives, and probably much sooner than any of us expect.
My friend’s death brought into clear focus a few of the many failings in my own life, principal among them my inability to make an effort to stay in touch with people in my life. That’s a failing to which all of us are subject. The sad truth of the modern world is that we live apart from family and friends; we are not typically clustered in the same villages or small towns.
Worse yet, technology gives us the illusion of closeness. We text people and email people and follow them on Facebook and other places online, but for many, in-person communication — the kind that requires time and patience and attention — has become virtually extinct. We have become voluntary shut-ins.
When was the last time you picked up a phone to check in? Thanksgiving offers the perfect time to reconnect with those who matter most.
Let me suggest an exercise for this Thanksgiving. Rather than counting your blessings or some other such Hallmark-driven nonsense, inventory the people in your life and recognize that all of them are gifts from God. Then pick up the phone and call one or two of them. Or, better yet, get in the car and go see them.
In the wake of my friend’s death, I reached out to my best friends from college. The three of us had been talking about going to a football game for some time (about 30 years), so we finally committed to attending the last game of the year.
The game itself was depressing. It was cold and gray and rainy. The game was poorly attended, with fewer than 1,000 fans in a stadium that holds at least 70,000. Apparently, the kids who populate Ivy League schools nowadays don’t go to football games. But what was great was the simple pleasure of being in the company of friends and sharing observations on the world, on aging, on our families and, most important, lengthy discourses on the wisdom of the play calling and coaching going on in the game.
For 1,000 years, victorious Roman generals were given a parade upon their return to Rome. The successful general typically led these “triumphs” in a chariot pulled by white horses. His soldiers marched behind singing patriotic songs, and the plunder from the defeated enemies usually brought up the rear. During all this, a servant in the general’s household rode along in the lead chariot and whispered a warning to his master: “Remember, you must die.”
That fate is one of the things that we humans all share. There is nothing we can do to change it. A wise man used to say to me that money comes and goes; the only thing we really spend is time. We can choose to spend our time alone, or we can use it to help our friends, our neighbors and our family, and in the process make our own lives better.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.