Under the Hill - Life

I, like everyone else around the country, was stunned by last week’s shootings at Virginia Tech. The original report on the carnage was terrifying, but looking at the pictures of so many young people cut down before their time just brought me to tears. We cannot understand why something like this happens, nor will we ever be okay with the idea that innocents always seem to be the ones to pay when the dark and twisted want to bare their ugly souls. The whole incident did leave me wondering, though, what am I doing with my life?

Since turning thirty I have become very aware of the passage of time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very aware that I am still a very young woman, but I’m also aware that “I’ll do it tomorrow” just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. In the last few years, I have made death’s acquaintance. I have buried grandparents, mentors, and friends, all with an understanding that life is all too brief. When you’re young you think you’re going to live forever. As you get older, you realize the foolishness of that line of thought. I can’t tell you guys how many times I have thought: “If only I could go back and do that over.” But life can only go forwards, not backwards and we do ourselves a disservice when we get too comfortable with waiting for things to turn out the way we want them too.

I’m not afraid die, what does scare me is looking back on my life and realizing that I have done nothing with this precious gift. It’s the fear that I have not told my family how much I love them, have not seen enough of the world, and have not made enough of my dreams come true. If we take nothing else from last week’s tragedy, we should take with us the utmost gratitude that we are still alive and that as long as we are a live we still have a chance to be the person that we have always wanted to be.

I was moved by the story of Virginia Tech Engineering Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, who placed himself in front of his classroom door to keep the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, away from his students. This gesture allowed his students to escape and saved dozens of families from having to bury their precious sons and daughters. Librescu sacrificed his life so that his students could live. His death brings home the fact that the true measure of a life is not how much money we make or all the things that we accumulate, but how much we have enriched the lives of those that we have known and loved.

till next week…