Numbering our days

This has been a rough year* for the families of a few of the women who have been involved in teaching my son, as well as many other children. I haven't blogged about these life-changing events for the sake of their privacy. More news came yesterday, along with an email about setting priorities, from a relative.

I've decided I need to take the summer off from blogging, to focus on "first things" in my life. This blog's original title, "Numbering Our Days," was taken from a great New Year's post by Amanda.

I don't make resolutions on the eve of a new year. Instead, I ask myself one question: This time next year, will I still be among the living?

It isn't a morbid thought; it is simply the most practical way I know of to focus my mind and heart on living--rather than merely existing--through the coming year. As Samuel Johnson said, the prospect of imminent death concentrates the mind wonderfully; and for all I know, my death may be mere heartbeats away. I'm young, but I've had friends who died younger. I'm healthy, but I've had friends who died healthier. The path from the womb leads to the tomb.

For those of us who know that death is but a sleep and an awakening, the fact that we are all dying is not cause for alarm. But it is cause for deliberate living.

I'm returning to that title, as a reminder.

Further listening: Son of mine (HT: This Side of Glory)
*A car accident, a shooting, cancer.