This is a topic that I know many people have on their minds and hearts on a regular basis. Sadly, we don’t think quite as much about life until we are touched by death. In the last 8 years I’ve lost both a parent and a sibling, and both times I was caught a bit unawares of how I treated the living until I was confronted with death. This was brought home especially powerfully this last week when a good friend of mine from college passed away somewhat suddenly, at least suddenly to me. What I wasn’t aware of was that even though we were in vague contact through Instagram, when I made the decision to quit socials, I didn’t make a plan or an effort to maintain contact with her or her husband. Random texts that are unplanned do not count, and so I quite literally had no idea that she was close to death several times over the past year. I simply woke up to a text last Monday with her obituary staring me in the face. I attended her funeral on Friday, and it was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences I’ve gone through in some time, especially when I went to hug her husband and nearly broke down in his arms.

Because of this experience, I have determined that I need to take better care of the existing friendships and relationships I have, lest I wake up to an unexpected message that will reveal another level of regret that I can avoid by being more purposeful. That might seem like a lot of people to include in my efforts, but if I take inventory of my available time, how much is spent doing things that don’t have that much worth, either in the present or in the future?

I’ll close this with a simple statement: I have made a large number of friends in this life, and even if I’m not able to reach them, or circumstances dictate I can’t, I walk forward saying that my friends matter to me, and I hope that they all know that. Now it’s up to me to remind them…