Death Bed Thoughts

An old adage, more sage as I get older, is that, on your death bed, when you think about the times in your life, your brain settles on what was really important during your time on Earth. All of the moments that you cherish. But, also, the moments, those precious moments, that you have wasted on unimportant things. Oh, they seemed important at the time. But, in hindsight, that most brilliant of realizations, it really is not that important....... As I get older, the death bed adage seems to grow stronger. Instead of it being in the back of my mind, as it is in your youth, when the world is open to you and you will live forever, the saying is very much in the forefront of my brain. Part of it, of course, is age. As we get older, hopefully, we do get wiser. Some people do not. The majority of us do, however. It is bitter irony that at some point, you lose your memory and wander off into fuzzy thoughts....... Still..... Ah, what was I about to write?...... What's everyone doing in my bedroom?...... Oh, yes, being focused and wise as you get older...... I do look at life differently now than, say, ten years ago. My life is in much slower motion. The images fly by at a much faster rate, but, the overall action is in the slow lane. At the cusp of 50 years old, I can now settle my thoughts around the central goal of living life like I should be. No longer do I go against the waves of fate. Rather, I surf along its waters, enjoying every passage that I go to or that comes to me. I accept all, hopefully, without very much resistance or complaints. Sure, I have my gripe sessions with the world. Everyone does. Still, with the advancement of age, comes to my mind much easier ideas of what is really important in my life. The death bed motto........ And, it is the simplest of lessons that we all know. To really enjoy your time in this life with the people you choose to love. Yes, its that simple. So, why do we not follow that mantra all of the time? Simple. Because life throws you the bad curves that wayward your spirit of love. I have gotten up feeling great in the morning [well, as great as you can feel at 5:30 am] with all of the expectations of having a great day. Then, I leave my condo, get in my car, and every asshole who has ever somehow obtained a drivers license, gets around me. These people ruin, in a flash of an instant, my internal smile. Soon, for brief [not serious] moments in my existence, I will wish them physical harm in their future, like hoping, since they made me slam on my breaks, barely avoiding an accident, that they somehow hit a tree very soon. As I said, I am not serious about it, but it is a fleeting thought. In the past, such minor incidents would ruin my day. Not anymore. The death bed adage again: it is not important in the overall scheme of things....... Nor is the various problems that greet all of us in our jobs. Whatever your position in life is, we all work for people who we feel could not find their dicks with two hands and a map. And, we all work with people who, for reasons that defy logic, really are horrible at their jobs and do next to nothing. And, they sport an horrible personality to boot. I work with some people who are as ugly internally as externally. Every company I have ever work at has these people. They walk between the raindrops, never seeming to get in trouble or called on the consequences of their actions. And, then, there are people like you and me who can look at someone cross-eyed and get called on the carpet for something that is not a problem. Is it fair that this happens? No. Will it change? Probably, not. Will it matter on your death bed as you are reviewing your life? It won't be anywhere on your memory radar........ This is what I mean about what is really important. I keep coming back to the death bed [forgive me for being somewhat ghoulish in my analogy]. The argument and disagreements I have now will not break my stride in life. I will not remember the bad times. I will not remember the petty arguments. I will not remember my disgust with many of my fellow citizens and how they live their lives for the worse. I will not remember the sickness and the suffering. I will not remember the lonely nights and the broken dreams. I will not remember the fear and the confusion........ I will remember much more pleasant thoughts and not how a co-worker mistreated a student or the client I pissed off in my salesmen years. I will remember the vacation that I took when I could not afford it but that has given me lasting memories. I will remember the smile on a woman's face when I did something that I really did not want to do but I knew it would make her happy. I will remember how proud I was feeling, when, despite pressures around me to change and go to the dark side of human nature, I stood firm and took the hits, with the sound knowledge that my parents were looking down on me with approval, because that is how they raised me. I will remember helping someone I found personally unpleasant because they needed me at the moment and I came through. I will remember all of the other times I was there for the people who I love fiercely, the ones I have been blessed with in life to be close to. I will remember the little kids I made laugh, strangers really, who I saw had parents that did not give a damn for them. I will remember the same feelings towards the elderly, whom, I hope, I made them also smile and swept away their loneliness for just a short time. I will remember the endless, carefree days of my youth, when all of life was open and innocent. I will remember the long nights and early mornings of friends having boundless fun, with arms thrown cavalierly over each other's shoulders, smiling our souls out. I will remember the family jokes, inside laughs that no one but family will get. I will remember my Mom's sweet smile and the aroma of her cooking. I will remember my Dad's infectious laugh and joyfulness to be around him. I will remember my sister, Lisa, and her caring and warm spirit. I will remember my brother, Tommy, with his wicked ways that were wrapped around a strange love for us all. I will remember the small moments, because that is what life is all about, of candlelight dinners and quiet times holding someone so dear to me close in my arms, protecting them, for the time being, from the badness out there in the cold world. I will remember Christmas when I was a kid, opening gifts with my family around me. Yeah, we weren't opening diamonds and vacations to Switzerland to ski but we had something much more valuable: being with each other and showering our family love on all of us. And, I will remember the personal feelings of satisfaction of making that cold world a little warmer through my actions....... I am proud of being good and not one of those horrible people who act it but do not really act on it. They may be making more with the zeros in their paychecks but they live empty, sadly, meaningless lives with no idea about the death bed thoughts. They are greeted with tension and unfriendliness when they walk into a room. I am greeted with smiles and warm embraces. I have always said that the sign of the person you REALLY ARE is how people react to you when you walk into a room. As I am lying on my death bed, closing my eyes for the last time, I will have the smile of one who is satisfied with his life performance...... And, if there is an afterlife, as I believe there is, I will hopefully be greeted by God with the words: ''You did well, Jimmy''...........