People die every day.
People will die today.
That may not come as particularly revelatory news to you, but it’s probably not something you’ve thought much about either, as you’ve started this seemingly ordinary day fully among the living.
Maybe you should think about it.
A hundred and fifty thousand people will cease to breathe today.
One hundred and fifty thousand, fathers, spouses, children, best friends, smiling neighbors, favorite uncles, church friends, classmates, and co-workers will move from the here to the hereafter—and most of them won’t see it coming.
Their normal day will be horribly interrupted, their previously working hearts will beat one final time, and then they will be among the vast multitude who will not be a part of the world that wakes tomorrow.
This means that there is a chance that people you encounter today will be on their last day here; some you know intimately, others perhaps only from a distance, and some you will encounter in a singular exchange on the highway or over a counter in the grocery store.
Knowing this, maybe you’ll see them differently today. You might treat the people around you with the dignity befitting them, knowing that this could be the final moments they share this place with you or with anyone. You might handle them with greater care and more compassion.
And because so many people die every day, there is an ever greater likelihood today that your path will cross those who are grieving them; new mourners nursing the fresh wounds of losing someone they expected to have alongside them a day earlier. All around you walk the shell-shocked grief zombies, spending their first day on the planet without someone they treasure.
Or maybe they realize that date of separation is coming soon, sitting vigil alongside someone they’ve adored and enduring the cruel attrition of watching them slowly being taken away. Perhaps they are carrying the invisible heaviness of the inevitable and quickly approaching farewell.
Or they might be having a grief anniversary; through a date on the calendar or a scent or a song or a place—being reminded of their loss all over again and grieving as if it were that very first day.
Most people won’t broadcast their mourning. They won’t be wearing signs asking us to treat them with gentleness. In fact, they’ll be doing their best not to show their grief—so we’re going to need to be gentle with everyone, just in case.
And those who will die today likely won’t see it coming, and therefore won’t be able to alert us to the scalding urgency we should have in their presence. We’re just going to have to handle them all with great care; to say today the words we think we’ll have more time to say; to offer every affection that we imagine we’ll show them tomorrow, knowing that may not be an option. We’re going to have to try and lavish the reverence on people befitting their last day here, as it very well might be.
Friend, we live this life with death as an ever-present companion. We need to remember this as we live, as we move through this world, as our lives bump up against others—either in the closest of proximity or in a momentary exchange.
Yes, people die every day.
Yes, people will die in this day.
May this cause us to live differently.
Order John’s book, ‘A Bigger Table’ here.
