What is the measure of a life?

I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the past 6 days helping to figure out the best way to notify people of a coworkers significant medical emergency and ultimate death.

It’s something I’ve been useful with because I tend to think very analytically rather than emotionally.

But it has truly sucked, nonetheless.

How do you tell children who have already suffered abuse and neglect that the caseworker that they have come to love and depend on has died?

How do you comfort the coworkers who witnessed her collapse and administered CPR to her until the paramedics arrived? Who called 911 and her husband? Who watched helplessly as the paramedics tried to bring her back? How do you erase those images from their brains and replace them with comfort and peace?

How do you pray for her family, her husband, her children, who loved her so?

How do you measure all the lives that she touched in her short time here?

How do you reconcile why a loving God would allow her to be taken so soon when she was still needed so much?

It is so easy to think that we will live forever, but the truth is that none of us do. We all think we have time. Time to say the things that we need to say, do the things that we need to do, love people the way that they need to be loved.

Sometimes we do. But sometimes we don’t.

Sometimes we have a conversation with a coworker and then walk to the copier and God chooses to take us before we even finish our task.

While I did not know Laurie well, I knew her well enough to know that she would probably be surprised by all the grief that people have felt over her. By all the attention that she has garnered, by all the thought that has been put into handling the best way to let people know about her death. She would probably be embarrassed that so much time has been spent on her and her legacy. She would probably be surprised to know how many lives she touched in a positive way.

You never know the measure of your life until it’s over. You never know the people that you have touched until you are gone.

Live your life in such a way that it takes people a really long time to figure out how they can possibly tell people about your death, because your positive impact on them has been so great. Live a life that you would be embarrassed at the time and attention that people spend on considering you and your legacy.

And say the things you need to say, do the things you need to do, love the people you need to love. Because tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, no matter our age.