Unfortunately, I’ve spent the last two Saturdays at memorial services. While both were uplifting celebrations of life, the underlying reason for them is sad and a foreboding for each of our finalities. However, at yesterday’s service one speaker read several stanzas from “The Dash,” written by Linda Ellis in 1996. The poem explains that parallel line on one’s tombstone between birth date and death date. In essence, the dash asks us to consider what kind of life we spent in the middle? Were we here briefly and succumbed to cholera or the bubonic plague? Were we teenagers who drove too fast into a tree or a concrete wall? Were we athletes who suffered a heart attack on a playing field? Or were we those who managed to survive for 70+ years?

The length of our lives is not important, according to Ellis; how we spent our lives is. She writes:

“So, think about this long and hard. Are there things you’d like to change? For you never know how much time that is left that can still be rearranged.

“If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s true and real, and always try to understand the way other people feel

“And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.

“If we treat each other with respect and more often a smile, remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

“So, when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash….Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent YOUR dash?”

Yes, I bolded three stanzas–in my opinion, those most important. Yes, it’s always difficult to celebrate the loss of life, but I gained a new understanding. From now on, I’m solely concentrating on my dash.