Before the Finish Line

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At the time of writing this, my dad is in the middle of open heart surgery, and while I have all intentions of him being just fine and will talk to him tonight, still, it makes me think about our my own mortality.

Our culture is one that relies heavily on people making their way to the top. We all want to be famous. We all want to be rich, whether we admit it or not. Even if we don’t necessarily want the celebrity-ism attached with a certain amount of wealth, you can’t argue that to be completely debt-free and retired early is extremely desirable. But what does it take to get there?

Chances are if you’re in my society, my generation, you’re working to make it to the top of your field. Because what part of “following your dreams” means “I want to be middle management”? I always tell my wife, when I die, I want to be remembered. My actual quote was, “I don’t want to save the world, I just want to change it.” Still a good thought in my mind. A good goal. And frankly, realistically, in a world of 6 billion people, I’ve got a very slim chance at making a meaningful change to the world as a whole. But that doesn’t mean that I should actually give it up.

The thought of my dad on a surgical table makes me think, what will he be remembered for, when his time does come? Here is a man who worked his entire life as a Funeral Director. Day in, day out. He’s never moved out of his hometown. He’s never met with world leaders to discuss the changing economy, AIDS, or nuclear weapons. He grew up Southern, Republican, and a Baptist. Some might say typical, but when you find yourself saying that, think about this. The man has worked his entire life. He’s been married to the same woman for 20 years, he’s raised two children of his own, and two step-children. He spent years taking care of his dying mother, making sure she had only the best care, and made sure that all of us growing up in his household had a college education and the skills to make it as an adult. And outside of his own life, he’s spent the last forty years taking care of his community as a volunteer, a board member, and the person people come to at the saddest and hardest parts of their lives- their loved one’s deaths.

Right now, he’s in the same place where millions of people in the world come to at some time- his life in someone else’s hands. And no matter whether he’s Trump, Nietzsche, or Obama, he’d be in the same place, and in the same situation. While there’s a good chance my dad will probably never be written up in the Encyclopedia Britannica, there is a absolute certainty that those that know him will say that he has helped change their lives for the better. And while his world is obviously a smaller world than mine, he has in fact done what I set out to do. He has changed it. And whether his last day on Earth is today (which, it’s not), or forty years from now, he, and many others like him, has shown that life is not about the finish.

It’s about the race.