Milestones

My dear friend Mike was in town for the wedding of his daughter McKenzie to Andrew. Mike and I worked at the Mary Davis Home from 1977 to 1988 when I decided to move on and do counseling work in an adult prison. We shared a simiLiar approach to our work and how to interact with others. While the years and miles have separated us it is one of those rare friendships that allows you to pick up right where you left off as if no time had passed. Mike stopped by for a visit today and as always said something that made me pause to think. Isn't that something we all want in a friend? Someone who makes us think. Mike wondered what the next milestone would be. We all have them in life. Things like taking our first step, going off to our first day of school, high school graduation, college graduation, marriage, birth of our first child, death of our parents, first grandchild, first child getting married. Mike has been through all these milestones and wondered what was next. Carol was sitting with us and we suggested the first time Norah walked or talked or started school. Mike correctly indicated those were her milestones and not his. Retirement is not an option as Mike is already there. What is left? Staring at the sun and waiting for the blissful release of death to free us from these earthly bonds? are there no milestones left for us? I pondered the idea and realized I could think of none. It does not mean that we will sit idly by and listen to the clock tick off the remaining minutes of our lives. We will live on and do what we will realizing that we are now prepared to pass the baton in the relay race of life. We have done our work, raised our children, seen them marry and have children of their own. We cannot go back and change what we have done or right the wrongs we have done. We can just hope we did enough to make the world a little better than it would have been without us. I am no longer a religious man, those days are gone. No belief in eternal life, this life is enough for me. I believe we live on only in the memories of those who know us. When they are all dead we are gone as well. So Mike, if the next milestone is death I take comfort in the belief that, at least for a time, I will be remembered.