I have recounted before, in a book I worked way too long on, how my mother passed away two days after I got home from my mission. It is important sometimes to emphasize that the only person this came as a surprise to was me.
At her memorial services only a week later, my Dad mustered up the emotional reserves to share the two following anecdotes:
- My Mom had been estranged from her brother Tom for six years at that point; why is not important right now. In any case, when her illness became terminal, he called her up out of the blue to reconcile. She was receptive, and he promised to fly out soon to visit her in person. He ended up having to move up his ticket a few weeks to be a pallbearer at her funeral instead.
- In my family’s previous ward in Port Angeles, a group of women who had been teenagers when we lived there decided to write her a packet of letters, recounting how much they had looked up to her and admired her for her beauty, grace, talents and strength. They collected the letters together and mailed them mid-September, to comfort her on her deathbed. She passed away on a Sunday morning. The packet arrived Monday.
My Dad was careful to emphasize that no one in either of these stories had done anything wrong, no one had failed, no one had sinned. Their timing was merely off.
But they both serve to remind us, he said, that whatever we’re going to do, do it now. Because there is always less time than you think.