MaybeToday.org

It comes quickly, and it goes like lightning. Life is truly over in a heartbeat. I wrote once, long ago – was it really more than yesterday? – about my need for a “certain urgency,” about my need to realize that the pressure is on before I can motivate myself to do what needs to be done. What it has taken me far too long to figure out is that life itself – or rather, death – provides that certain urgency to me, and to all, all the time. It is over before we have a chance to act, unless we act at every opportunity, rather than waiting for the “right” opportunity. The kids are grown and gone before they can be taught many of life’s serious lessons. And I can only marvel at how life has passed me by.

My uncle Gerry Gillis passed away Saturday, at the age of 80, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Gerry was quite a guy. When Joyce and I took Kelly & Leigh to visit Nova Scotia during the summer of 1997, we stayed with Gerry at the family home on Hawthorne Street, where he and his wife Bubby had raised their nine children – the same home where my grandfather had settled with his clan, after leaving Sydney for Antigonish. Gerry and Bubby were the most gracious hosts.

While walking downtown from the house after our first night there, Joyce told me that she had had a dream in the night that a baby appeared to her and said “Hi Mom.” Nine months later, Abby was born. Must be something about that house…

The obituary in the Halifax Chronicle Herald listed just an amazing amount of volunteer work that Gerry had done over the years. But the one thing that will stick in my mind is the last sentence – five simple words: “He was a good man.” Amen to that. I’m not sure how many obituaries can rightfully end that way, but I pray that mine can.