The Power Of Mortality™ Blog

You can check out an online radio interview that I did with Ron Graves on the 7th Wave Network.

The show is called Achieving the Extraordinary and always features uplifting stories. Ron is a real gentleman and it was a pleasure to be interviewed by him.

Even though the show was aired live on July 11th, you can still listen to the interview.

On Friday I received a call from a company that has been a client of mine for the past year or so. When I heard Roy’s voice, I naturally assumed that it was a business call. He asked me if I had recently received a call from Karl (the owner of the company). I became excited, thinking: “If Karl is involved, it must be a great business opportunity!“

Instead, Roy said, “I’m just calling to let you know that David was killed in a car accident on Tuesday.“

Wow.

David was a co-worker of theirs and one of my favorite people to work with since he struck the perfect balance between being a business-person and being a friend. After a moment I said to Roy: “Didn’t he have young kids?“

Yes, David was killed at the age of 44 leaving behind a wife and three boys.

Roy told me that the police investigators told them that David was driving on a regional road (not a major highway) at mid-morning. The weather was good. It appears as though David undid his seat-belt and was reaching for something on the passenger side of the car, which caused him to move his driving hand ever-so-slightly to the left. He died in a head-on collision with a tanker truck.

We’ve all done silly things in our cars. Cell phones, coffee, food, and many other things can cause us to drive less safely than we should. The news about David was a cold, hard reminder that life-and-death events can occur in an instant and all it takes is one split-second slip in our attention.

Later in the day, I happened to come across David’s business card, which, for some strange reason, was lying on a corner of my desk and not in the card file box. I took his business card and put it by the gauges in the dash of my car, to serve as a reminder to ALWAYS drive safely.

You’ll be missed, Dave!

Last week I overheard two ladies talking. Apparently they hadn’t seen each other for quite some time and were catching up. The part of the conversation that I overheard went like this: “Yes, I still find it hard to believe that I lost my husband eleven hundred and seventeen days ago.”

I was astounded when I heard that! I quickly did the math and realized that this woman’s husband had died over three years ago. Three years and she was still counting the days!

Now I’m not trying to downplay the tremendous grief that can come from losing a loved one. I certainly don’t question her right to feel the pain for as long as necessary - we all grieve in different ways. But the first thing that came to my mind was: “I wonder if she can tell me how many days they were married?”

Or for that matter, I wonder if she knows how many days old she is?

It is unfortunate that our society finds it more acceptable to focus on the loss of something, than on the joy of having it. Imagine the strange looks that I’d get if I met an old friend and had this conversation:

“So are you married now?”

“Yes, my wife and I have been married for two thousand, two hundred and twenty seven days! And we’ve been enjoying our son for seventeen hundred and eighty-seven days and our daughter has been lighting up our lives now for five hundred and ninety-nine days!”

It is often said that we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. Please do yourself and your loved ones a favor and be sure to cherish each and every day that you have together.

By the way, if you want to calculate things for yourself, you can go to: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html

ENJOY NOW!
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