We walked nearly every day. We examined every tree on our path and every bug, bird, and animal. It was a time of bonding. It was a time of uncertainty and a time of fear. It was a time of anxiety, adjustment, and living with the unknown. It was a time of togetherness and prayer. It was the lockdown of 2020 during the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was only 3 years ago but it feels like ages ago.
We visited her in the hospital everyday. We wept, prayed, laughed, and wept some more. We watched helplessly as her little life hung in the balance, teetering between time and the eternity. She spent the first 4 months of her life in the hospital but it felt like 4 years. Catherine Therese was born in 2008, 15 years ago, but it feels like another lifetime.
We flew back and forth to see each other often. We went to Engaged Encounter, dreamed of being together, raising a family, and all the rest without a clear picture of what that would look like. Now we have 8 children all growing into their own personalities, lives, and families. 24 years ago we met for the first time in person at Franciscan University of Steubenville at a Defending the Faith Conference. 23 years ago on August 19th, 2000 we vowed to give ourselves to each other totally, faithfully, and fruitfully. Today, in my mind, those two young kids are barely recognizable to me except through photographs.
Time is a funny thing. While the actual ticks of the clock and moving of the stars remains constant, our experience of it is dependent on our state in life, the events we are experiencing, and those we are with. The night is short when dancing and celebrating. It is long when racked with a fever or watching the sufferings of those we love. The days are short when we are enjoying every single moment to the fullest with those we love. The days are long when our work seems unending or terrible news has been received.
As I watched my father and my brother pass into eternity, time slowed to the point of stillness. None of my efforts could speed up the clock to help me get through it faster. Now, those moments seem too short, a flash of lightning from a common storm on the horizon of life.
24 years ago I was 27 and preparing for marriage, filled with awe wonder and naiveté. My father was 48, younger than I am today and still working, fishing, and hunting. My brother, my grandparents, my wife's grandparents, and many friend's faces still looked upon the sun.
In another 24 years, if God wills it, I will be 75. I expect I will have grandchildren, more beautiful daughter-in-laws, and perhaps a great-grandchild or two. The world will look a little different as will our farm and home. I will remember fondly those I have lost in that timespan. My health won't be what it is today or was before. At 75, momentous events of life and death, marriages, suffering, celebrations, sickness, and joy will all be seen as more brief flashes of lightning on the distant horizon.
The psalmist tells us:
You (God) sweep men away like a dream,
Like grass which springs up in the morning,
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
By evening it withers and fades.
Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong.
They pass swiftly and we are gone.
Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart.
To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night. (Psalm 90: 5-6, 9-10, 12, 4)
To many, this is a depressing thought; to dwell on death and the shortness of our lives. Yet, these inspired words should fill us with hope give us wisdom of heart. Just as the events of last Tuesday have come and gone like a flash, so will our lives. In this there is hope because time, our time on earth, is merely a flash; a microflash of a microflash when compared to eternity. Draw a tiny red dot on a piece of paper. Extend a black line out from that dot. Continue that line off the paper across your state and around the world. Do this a billion times. Now look back at the red dot, your brief life. Look at the seemingly never ending line around the world a billion times; that is merely the beginning of eternity.
Since our lives are so short, let us strive to make the best of the time given to us. Let us, in the short time we have, maybe 80 years for those who are strong, to love and be loved, be happy and spread happiness, seek and share the joy of the Lord. If our eternity is an eternal reflection of how we spent our time, how will you begin living differently today?
FROM THE SAINTS (not a saint but a great quote nonetheless)
"Brothers, what we do in life...echoes in eternity!" - Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) in Gladiator (2000)
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