THE DASH

I'm going to be cremated when I die. I will not have a tombstone with a dash between two dates carved into it. As I thought about that dash after reading someone's eulogy about the dash, I wondered how well a use the time that dash represents. The dash alone just says you lived and breathed throughout that period. I wonder how people define good use of it. Is it on what one leaves behind? I didn't build buildings, but I built relationships, lots of them. Is it on what one leaves for the next generation? I will probably have little money or real property left when I go. The best I can hope for is not to be a burden on anyone else during my lifetime. Is it character and disposition? I wasn't the funniest person around, but I have made lots of people laugh. I have never committed a felony though I might have broken some traffic laws. Was I special? I won't be remembered for singular artistic, musical, or other creative talents but I created lots of ways to reach people in therapy, or got them to hear one another and think outside the box they were trapped in. I have helped people stay together or part, which ever they concluded was the direction they chose. Was I a great caretaker? I am not the best anything, cook, housekeeper, organizer, but my family seemed to thrive despite my mediocre efforts in these areas. I took care of the elders in my family and my husband's as best as I was able while juggling my own home, children and jobs. They are gone and I don't think they care what I did to or for them. Only I know and can feel good about what I did. I don't ask for a lot more than to live as much of my life without regrets as possible.

If there were a St. Peter,the greeter, at the Pearly gate , who might ask me how I spent my dash, how would I answer? "Well, St. Peter, my dash was one fast run through life. I lived every minute of it as close as assuring my survival allowed. I succeeded in finding more happiness than sadness. I tamed stress, though it took me much of my life to get the hang of it. When painful stuff landed in my life, I did the best I could to manage it and always believed it possible only with the great deal of luck I always seemed to have . I tried not to dump my problems onto others but I often tripped and spilled some onto my friends, the real ones who cared to listen."

"Even though I didn't have too much to complain about, I never had a problem letting everyone around me know just how I felt, whether they wanted to hear it or not! There used to be something or someone I thought needed work or improvement...and let them know it. I learned to be critical of myself and others in a family that expected everyone to do well and not need praise for that, just criticism when things were not up to the bar set by the parents. I was pretty grown up when I learned that no one has to be perfect, perfection is invisible to most."

During that 'dash' I learned that a feeling of belonging exists within. Wherever I go, I can choose to share myself or not. I am so grateful that I was given a view of life as a half-full glass, not a half-empty one. People who have touched my life, sometimes only briefly, have filled it. I grieve for people who are abrasive, push people away, and live a lonely life. I truly believe that one of the greatest lessons I learned was that you can live only in your own skin. It taught me I can try to control my own life but I have no control over any other. Life is very good while you have it.