What Matters Most

What matters most to you? What's really important?

We always seem to find ourselves asking this question when someone dies. Silly trivial things take on such diminished importance, we wonder why we ever cared about any of it at all. I'm there today.

I've had relatives die before, but nobody I'm close to. JJ's relatives seem to be dropping like flies lately; a sister, an uncle and two aunts, all gone in three years. I loved them all, but close? No, not really. It seems my clan is actually the hardier one, though JJ's grandma is now 100.

Tim, in his mid-forties, dying of a heart attack (I was just told) brings it home in a new way.

S and I are doing our best for Joy. We've got dinners planned for a month out, answered phones, started cleaning the refrigerator (it was Tim's domain,) answered phones, talked to the principal and reassured her that yes, it would be a good idea to bring the counselor and Austin's teachers to visit, and today took Austin to pick up Joy's mom from the airport so Joy could go to the funeral home. Oh, and answered phones. It doesn't seem enough to us. I'll go back this evening to see what else we can do, and S is there now. S and I discussed it; we're just unable to think of anything else we should be doing.

I'm thinking about all this because of the battle royale. Certain relatives are upset that Tim will be cremated. Others are incensed that he will not be buried in a suit (he hated suits.) Everyone has a claim, an emotion, a tie that demands their opinion be heard. And Joy has heard them over and over. It's damaging the relationships left and right. Again, I state that I've never been in this situation, but from the outside it looks so petty, so stupid, so trivial. It just doesn't matter. A good man is gone, and the pain and the void created by his leaving is rending holes in the people who loved him. The grief has to be the greater for all that.

I've shed more tears more frequently for Tim and Joy and Austin than for anyone else I've lost. I've heard Austin talk casually about his dad being dead, and Joy's worry that he isn't processing it, and I realize I'm studying grief close-up. And natually I ask what would I do? How would I behave, what would I feel, what would I do with those feelings if I had those challenges?

What am I made of? And how will I be remembered? I think it's Steven Covey who says to live your life each day being the person you hope your obituary describes.

A song lyric keeps coming back to me from Cheri Keaggy-

What matters most
Is how much we love
What matters most
Is how much we give
What would it matter if we just lived
Without loving our God
Without loving each other
What matters most is
How much we love
Setting our sights
On the needs of our brother
Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves
We give to the Lord
When we give to each other
Faith, hope and love, especially love
That's what matters most

I'm getting out the yardstick and checking where all I fall short.