Time Heals

Just one week ago I was walking in the beautiful Mississippi Palisades State Park, one of the great joys of living in this upper corner of Illinois. The park is just 8 minutes by car from my home, and has these beautiful views from the limestone bluffs of the Mississippi River...one of the great waterways of the world. Aside from that there are many winding woodland trails. When it's hot and muggy though, I find the roads are breezier, cooler, and there are less insects than the trails. So on this day I was walking the hilly roads, and I had my headphones on. I was listening to Jon Secada's "Time Heals."

When my late wife, Adrianne died, I would walk 9 miles a day in that park. 'One foot in front of the other' was my mantra for years. "Just keep moving, Alan" I would say to myself. Well on this day, I heard a great crash, and turned around to see the 'after bounce' of a large limb smashed across the entire road I had just passed seconds before! After taking these photos I cut my walk short and went home to reflect on the event. Time heals but life is too short. My wife was only 55 when she passed over. Some friends said: "Your wife was watching over you." In the end, my feeling is that the universe was telling me to "Get moving. Your time can end at any moment. You still have work to do so get busy before your time is up."

We all have limited time so we have to "make it count." I have made a resolution to do just that. My wish is that unlike New Years resolutions that are abandoned by February 1st, this summertime resolution is going to endure and I'm sticking to it. When my time comes to cross over, I don't want to have that thought: "I could have, should have."

One of the great lessons of the Titanic tragedy is that none of us ever really knows when our time here is going to be over. We don't want to waste a moment of it.