D.O.B.----D.O.D.(Date of Birth-Date of Death) by Mr. Daddy

I attended a classmates' funeral today.
Seems as if there are getting to be fewer and fewer of us as the years go by...

Probably doesn't help that I come from a small hick town. (pop. of about a 1,000), which means the school size is similar. If memory serves me correctly there were about 55 or 56 in my graduating class.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about......

What intrigued me today was something the pastor that was giving the eulogy asked.

What is the most important thing on the headstone in the cemetery? He proceeded to name off a list of things that were printed on most headstones, and then came to his point......

That being: what was between the D.O.B. and the D.O.D.
He used that as the starting point to talk about Joe's life..

That nothing on that headstone mattered more than what was done between those two dates.......

Not his name....

Not that he was a son.....

Not that he was a husband.....or a father... or a brother..

Nor any words of an epitaph, that someone else had put there......

As he went on to fill in the blanks between the Date of Birth and Date of Death, I rediscovered and old friend. Now you can't go to school in Hicksville with someone for 12 years and not know a little about them, even if you didn't remain close after graduation. Especially when aunts and uncles and siblings went to the same school, and our families grew up on the same prairie. (And no, I did not go to a family reunion to find a date for my senior prom...thankyouverymuch. I just didn't go........ *grin*)

Through the eulogy, and then the testimonies that followed, I realized that a man had grown out of the memories of the boy I knew. Joe's family can be proud of the fact that he had filled the blanks very well....

And then it happened: that still small voice in my heart, "Are you proud of the blanks?"

I don't think so!!!

I will have to work harder on them........



How about you?