You do not know…

All through our lives we meet people and earn what we can from them before they leave. It has always been as such and always thus will be. However we always seem to take each other and everything we own for granted to such an extent that we forget that it might not be there tomorrow. I learn this message the other day when my aunt Lenny died suddenly early in the morning while cooking breakfast for her family. We were all shocked to hear the news and did not know how to react. We knew that she had heart troubles but had assumed that it was under control.

It was on the day of her funeral that something occurred to me. I was experiencing grief just as everyone else in attendance was, but as I looked around me I saw many classmates, school teachers, and other acquaintances of mine when I had an epiphany. Most of the people there at that funeral, family or not, knew here better that I did. You see our family has been dividend for many years for personal reasons that I will not divulge here. But as a result the last time I saw her alive was back in early grade school, and only recently have we began to mend the problems between us. It was at this that I realized that I was grieving as all of the others attending, but I was grieving for a reason far different from most of the others there. I was grieving not just for her death but also for how little I knew her and all the time that we could have shared together. The old adage is true you do not know what you have until it is gone. So try to spend as much time with those your loved ones as you can. You will never know when they are gone.