Thoughts from the death of a friend

It's been a funny (peculiar) start to the year. The month of January had hardly begun when I went down with laryngitis followed a few weeks later by a severe cold. These between them meant that there wasn't a lot I could start or pursue through that month and any work on this blog also took a rather firm back seat (for which - my apologies).

In the midst of this, my husband and myself heard of three deaths, all of friends. The first was a friend from my husband's teenage years; another was a neighbour who we knew was suffering from cancer; and the last was a friend from the church I belong to, who was also in the choir. And it was this one that affected me the most.

Mary's death was a shock. Although in her seventies, she was very fit and regularly undertook walking trips - even spending holidays going away with rambling groups. She had phoned me on a Saturday, the week after I had become ill to enquire about something and, by the following Thursday she was dead; having succumbed to a severe invasive bacterial infection.

The suddenness of it all reminded me how precious and fragile our lives are. Time that we have is often wasted when we don't make the best use of it. We treat our moments as if we have an inexhaustible supply. We leave things undone, to be done whenever we feel like it. We put off contacting friends very often until a time where it is more convenient to ourselves.

Mary

Mary was someone who, I believe did make the best use of her time. As well as being in the Ramblers Association, she was involved in many other activities including the Women's World Day of Prayer and the annual Ride and Stride charity event. She was also a loving wife, mother and grandmother and enjoying her retirement years.

The best thing I can do is to look to her example and make every moment count - ensuring that my life is not lived in a perpetual haze of 'whenever'. This will include:-
Holidays we always wanted to go on and never started planning;
Friends we want to see;
Places we always wanted to go to;
Activities we always wanted to do;

All at the moment consigned to the 'when the time is right' pile.

And the sad truth is that life can change in the blink of an eye, sometimes restricting what we do on a permanent basis. Life is for living so let's live it!

So, starting tomorrow, it being Ash Wednesday and the first day of Lent, I am giving up Facebook games and games found on my mobile phone,which I spend a lot of time on, using those precious minutes in a different way. All I can say at the moment is watch this space.