The thing about time

There comes a time in every adults lifetime when you start to think about your own mortality. For a few different reasons this week I have been thinking about this subject.

This past week my small high school class lost another classmate. This seems so wrong to me. We are all 33-34 and have lost 4 classmates. By far to young to lose so many whether it be at their own hands or from illness.

I keep thinking somehow I wish I could go back and hug them one last time and tell them they won't see age 17 or 30 or 31 or 35 that they must live while they have time but none of us know how much time we have. We could be hanging out with friends tonight and gone to live with the angels by tomorrow morning.

In some ways our class was close knit. Most of us went to school together from kindergarten on. In a lot of other ways our class was just like any other, cliquish and segregated. We all knew each other though. That is the good thing about life in a small town. Everyone knows everyone.

Death just seems to be all around lately. Every night there is some souls family to pray for. Last week our seemingly healthy mayor died of lung and brain cancer. He campaigned wholeheartedly all summer and fall. He won election and presided at one town council meeting before he was diagnosed with lung cancer and a very short amount of time later brain cancer.

Life is short. Far to short. The THS class of '93 was reminded of that this week. Joanna's soul has flown to heaven where I can only hope a small class reunion is under way. A reunion without all the awkwardness of a class reunion. I hope Joanna, James, Jeff and Michael are looking fondly down on the rest of us, sending us the message to make the most of the time we have left down here.