This past week our community lost two good men I knew; Bill Mountz and Fran Fisher.
While Fran was in his nineties Bill died unexpectedly in his early fifties. The differing longevity of their lives did not lessen the weight of their loss on the hearts of their friends and families.
Often in times of loss there are lessons to be learned. As I listened to friends and family speak about both men I was reminded that for all the big moments in our lives it will be the little things that we remember and are remembered for.
It will be the daily challenges plus the laughs we share and the small touches that shine when it is all said and done. It reminded me of a quote from Anton Chekov, the Russian playwright and author, that always makes me laugh when I think of it:
“Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
While the day to day living may wear us out, it is where we find the gems that we hold onto.
It was Bill Mountz’s best friend smiling as he talked about Bill playing guitar, inhaling his morning coffee, or taking time off from work to hunt squirrels.
It was Jeff Fisher talking about his father playing charades with his family. Fran stuck his wife Charlotte’s team with a clue for a fictional book titled “Hoof Hearted.” (Say it aloud and you’ll get the joke).
It was Jerry Fisher talking about fishing with his father in the Juniata River and finally getting to put his own worm on the hook.
All of those stories are seemingly everyday things, not monumental in the lives of the people still living and not in the lives of the people who are gone. But it illustrates that the day to day living is what endures that we leave behind.
It got me thinking about examples I’d seen in my own life and in people I love — some I’ve lost and some still here.
I thought of my brother and I fixing a game of pinochle against our Uncle George. He could not believe that a 10-year-old was taking him to the cleaners.
In my home office I have on a shelf just four feet from me as I write this the very first baseball mitt my father ever gave me. I can still see his smile as he handed it to me.
How many times did my mother smile as she chased us away from stealing the raw cookie dough for her famous chocolate chip cookies? She still has to chase us away. How many times did we gripe about having to crank the tomatoes for her famous tomato sauce? I look back and smile still.
So many mornings I sat with my grandmother at her kitchen table watching songbirds flock to her array of birdfeeders. They attracted everything from hummingbirds, to blue jays to sparrows, finches and even squirrels. My grandmother tried to scare the squirrels away but they always came back.
My grandfather had a great laugh and we never laughed more than when he gave me marital advice. He’d been married for well over 50 years and said “I have two words that will help you through your marriage — Yes Dear.”
Which brings me to my own home. Sometimes while sitting at home or at a social event with friends I’ll look across the room and see my wife. I see her passion for life and she doesn’t know I’m watching. Occasionally she’ll catch me looking and smile at me. That smile is etched in granite in my heart.
I have images of all of my children getting on the school bus, or getting home and running to hug me. The smiles are what I will hold dear.
My hope is that they retain the small things I do for them, that I smile often enough and laugh enough. I hope I touch their lives enough so that when my time comes they recall those things that made their day-to-day lives special.
I am reminded of another quote — this from Ralph Waldo Emerson — about what makes a successful life:
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
None of these are the big things we want to celebrate in life. They are the core values, the steps we take every day to be a friend to someone, to show our love to our family and friends.
I think of both Bill Mountz and Fran Fisher and what I heard about both of them from their friends and families.
Sometimes in loss we regain the focus on how we should live and treat one another.
That is the way we will ultimately be remembered.
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