This is the post I had planned to share.

The Passing of Time

Fifteen years have passed so quickly in an agonizingly slow procession of minutes. Looking back, I ask myself, “How did that amount of time slip by to form so many pages in my book of life? How can it be that my children have grown and have lives of their own?” Fifteen years ago, they were all living at home, still children looking to me and my wife Cindy for guidance. Fifteen years ago March 24th, 2003, we all felt the sting of death and the apparent victory of the grave.

Fifteen years seems like such a long time as I write it, but is has passed ever so quickly. The seconds have accumulated, inexorably turning page after page of the calendar amassing themselves into a decade and a half. How can nearly one quarter of my life have slipped through my fingers leaving a dim trail of memories in such an excruciatingly rapid pace? Somehow, I’ve grown old. Somehow my youth has flown away. Somehow the form of the Grim Reaper has become more solid and dark.

It’s not that I fear the “shadow of death,” oh, no. I’m marvel at how fleeting time has become and how swiftly life passes. It seems like yesterday I dandled our first child on my knee and now she has a child older than she was then.

This anniversary is one I have never liked to “celebrate” but it is one that will always be remembered by me and our family. Death must have wanted to forever imprint this date on our hearts, our souls, and our minds, because on the third anniversary of my wife’s passing, my mother, Sybil lost the battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

I don’t write this to garner sympathy. I only want to share my thoughts and advise those who still have living parents and spouses to hold them close and to tell them that you love them. Time has a way of speeding by and before you know it, the loved ones in your life have passed. Tell parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, and friends how much they mean to you and let them know that you love them.

I just noticed, Up to the ending of the last sentence, there were 365 words. One for each day of the year, fill your calendar year with words of love.