THE DASH
I had never heard of the concept of "the dash" before reading this post by Conrad Allen. Like Conrad, 2013 was a year of many losses. This is a fantastic reminder of how we are spending our dashes.
The last two months have been awful. It seems like we have been to more funerals in the last two months than the last two years. Today’s was for James “Jimbo” Bourque. Our good friend Don Bourque’s father. He also left his wife Diane, another son Jeffrey and a daughter Robin. It reminded me of a eulogy of a beloved family member 11 years ago.
It had to do with the dash. The dash I am talking about is the one that we find on the cemetery monument that is between the year of our birth and the year of our death. All of us need to spend more time thinking about how we “spend our dash”. What truly matters is how we lived. We could be at mid dash like Kerrie Murphy who recently died at 44. A little longer dash for Mr. Bourque at 71.
We are so busy earning a living, taking care of children or taking care of elderly parents or both. We can lose perspective of what is really important. Every person’s dash is different but God, family and love should be in there. We need to be more appreciative of life and all that it offers without concentrating on the negatives. We need to treat people with more respect, smile more often and remember that our dash might be shortened. So when your eulogy is being said will you be proud of your dash?
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