{"id":5074,"date":"2014-06-25T22:54:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T03:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=5074"},"modified":"2014-08-01T07:19:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T12:19:36","slug":"cherishing-people-around-us-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=5074","title":{"rendered":"Cherishing the people around us – NOW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lilacs\"<\/a>by Robert Gillis
\nPublished in the Foxboro Reporter and Boston City Paper 7\/2014<\/i><\/p>\n

A fair warning friends, this one isn\u2019t summer fluff.<\/p>\n

Every now and then, I look up a name from the past \u2013 sometimes it\u2019s to see how someone is doing \u2013 perhaps connect with them on Facebook \u2013 or just see who\u2019s working where, who\u2019s living there, who got married, or find out \u201cthe rest of the story\u201d of people from my past.<\/p>\n

This week, I was very saddened to learn that my cousin Kevin Holland from Maryland passed away back in 2008. He was FORTY.<\/p>\n

Through my entire life, I probably spent a total of 15 days with him \u2013 and I have not thought about him in many years, nor seen him in over twenty, but his death saddened me.<\/p>\n

I met Kevin back in 1981 when his grandmother (Florence) visited my Nana (Anne) in Dorchester. The next year it was our turn, and my family and Nana had a wonderful week with the extended Maryland family in Ocean City.<\/p>\n

Years later, in 1989-1991, every May, Nana and I flew down to New Carrolton so she could visit with her sister. I really enjoyed those trips with Nana, and my southern cousins always made me feel so welcome.<\/p>\n

Each visit, I had wonderful talks with all my Maryland family \u2013 the older adults had grown up with my dad, so we shared many tall tales \u2013 and all their kids were my age so we hung together.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d had a very obvious crush on cousin Nancie when I first met her, and she liked to tease me about it as we got older. And for friends, you couldn\u2019t ask for better than Kevin \u2013 we were about the same age, and each time I visited, he made sure to include me for a night out with his friends to a club or party \u2013 he was a genuinely \u201cgreat\u201d guy and I wish we had not lost touch.<\/p>\n

Such very, very brief visits but good memories — Kevin talking about sneaking his girlfriend into the house at night. Listening to the tunes while we washed his car in the driveway. Playing quarters with his friends. Playing horseshoes. Cookouts. Incredible clubs and parties. Going to the arcade in Ocean City. Chatting with his friends and family.<\/p>\n

We packed a lot into those all too brief vacations, but by 1991 Nana knew it would be her last trip; she was getting on in years, and both she and Florence passed away in 1993.<\/p>\n

Now, grandmothers get older and pass away. People grow older, people get sick and die. The longer we live; it seems we go to more and more funerals. But a 40 year old cousin \u2013 who\u2019d already lost a sister in her twenties to diabetes\u2013 it just ripped me apart.<\/p>\n

And I think of a man my sister dated, a married dad with a family \u2013 dead from cancer, not yet 45.<\/p>\n

I think of my beautiful friend Niki, who lost her brother Michael after years of illness \u2013 he was 25.<\/p>\n

I read about a young girl in Sharon, about 20, killed when she was hit by a car.<\/p>\n

I think about Sam Berns, another rock star of a human being, who made an astounding difference in 17 short years \u2013 gone.<\/p>\n

The list goes on, and on. Every one of us knows someone who died far too young. Someone who died with SO much potential left. So much promise.<\/p>\n

GONE.<\/p>\n

We have the funerals and the memorials and then life MUST go on, because we cannot survive if we live in perpetual mourning. I understand that.<\/p>\n

But the more I hear about young people dying \u2013 and there are so many, it just hurts. A lot.<\/p>\n

Yes, we celebrate their lives, we honor their memory, and we try to live life a little more fully — At least for a little while, until we get busy with work, school, bills, the house, the kids\u2026 and soon we have forgotten \u2013 again– the lesson of how very precious life is.<\/p>\n

That is, until the next young person passes away.<\/p>\n

Today, I think of Kevin \u2013 a friend from the past, and Mike, and Sam, and so many other young lives, people who have left us long before their time.<\/p>\n

And I realize how selfish we can all be sometimes. We get so involved with the day to day \u201cstuff\u201d we deal with that so much of life passes by in a blink. And suddenly we\u2019re saying, I wish I had returned that phone call\/email. I wish I\u2019d spent more time with them. I wish I cherished them. I wish, I wish, I wish\u2026<\/p>\n

Because life can change in an instant, and we keep forgetting that.<\/p>\n

Recently, someone I care about was in a car accident \u2013 it could have been FAR worse. Life could have changed, or ended in a heartbeat \u2013 but it didn\u2019t. They\u2019re alive and well.<\/p>\n

There are no words to convey my gratitude for that miracle, but that \u2013 and my learning of Kevin\u2019s passing, got me melancholy and thinking a lot\u2026.<\/p>\n

We need to LIVE more.<\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah, you\u2019re all sick of reading it on Facebook and little motivational posters but the reason you see it so often is because it is TRUE.<\/p>\n

Live for today.<\/p>\n

We need to see the miracle that is the people who love us, the special people around us, and the good friends. The community. The things that make us happy.<\/p>\n

In one of the Star Trek movies, Captain Picard said, \u201cWhat we leave behind is not as important as how we\u2019ve lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s good advice. Live well my friends. Cherish what you have. Cherish the people around you, the ones who mean the most to you. Enjoy what and who you have NOW.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lesson so many \u2013 myself included \u2013 need to embrace more.<\/p>\n

It can all be gone in a heartbeat. So cherish the NOW.<\/p>\n

End of speech. Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be funnier next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Gillis Published in the Foxboro Reporter and Boston City Paper 7\/2014 A fair warning friends, this one isn\u2019t summer fluff. Every now and then, I look up a name from the past \u2013 sometimes it\u2019s to see how someone is doing \u2013 perhaps connect with them on Facebook \u2013 or just see who\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude-and-giving"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}