Time can be shorter than you think

Earlier last night, a good friend of mine lost his Dad. He passed away in the evening, and although I knew he was ill, I most certainly didn't expect him to die yesterday. Why, it was just Monday, that I made a little comment on Facebook for him to let me know when he might be up for a visit after the standard Happy New Year wishes. And even on my desk calendar, I had made a notation to make a point of calling my friend next week to catch up and perhaps get his father's number. His father only lived in the next town over, for goodness sakes! I admonished myself that all this time had passed and how we often take people and things for granted and such. By next week, with children appropriately settled into routines, and me back to my work schedule, I should have been able to spend some time with his father. It had been YEARS.

But, that's the funny thing about life. The fates don't exactly ask us, and in most occasions, don't really care, about what we write on our calendars and how exactly we intend to spend our time. Because, ultimately, time is much shorter than we think. I have yet to hear of a person, that has said at whatever age they were, that they wanted less time. All of us, want more. Just that extra second, minute, hour... But, what we all fail to realize, more often than not, is we're not the dictators of time. And if we flash through the moments we were given, how often we find a hard remark, a flipped finger at a jerk driver, and some unbelievable astonishment of the complete moronic complexity of any particular human being.

Tonight, I will hug my husband, just a little longer  when he walks in the door. Tonight, I won't yell at my kids for playing in the sink or the inevitable mess they will make in my office 10 minutes before it's time for bed. Tonight, I'll spend the extra 10 minutes listening to my sister. And tonight, (although, I'm sure my mother will say something that will annoy me), I will tell my parents that I love them. Because tonight, my friend will not have his Dad. And, ultimately, I do not have a guarantee that I will wake up tomorrow.

Rest in peace, my friend's Dad.