A GOOD EXAMPLE
I went down to the river the other day just to sit and think. The river is only about a mile from my house and it’s always so peaceful there this time of the year. The place where I like to sit is in a bend on the river on a slight bluff and there are some small rapids right above there. So upstream the water is somewhat turbulent but then as it goes around the bend and flattens out flowing peacefully on its way again. To a mind that thinks like mine thinks, it reminds me so much of the days of our lives. We all have those turbulent times come at us too, just like the river does but then we get through them and then they are over and life carries on. Like the water flowing down the river and around the bend, our yesterdays and todays seem to disappear around the corner somewhere out of sight, never to be lived again. Gone but not forgotten.
A man I admired so much passed away last week. He was a fixture in this town having lived a good share of his life here. He was a humble man but yet he was a mentor to many of us and a former business man. His life was rooted in his church and his family. His spouse and him were a loving couple for almost a third of a century. You rarely saw them apart. He was a walking encyclopedia of Crosslake and his memory was a cornucopia of days gone by. The good old days so many of us old people identify with. His health wasn’t good the last few years and he had a lot of trials and suffering. But every time I saw him, he had a smile for me and he never dwelled on the bad things. Yes Leo, yours was a life well lived. May you rest in peace.
It has been a privilege for me to be able to write about people who lived storied lives while they were here on this earth. People tend to acquaint greatness with public figures and wealthy people. But to me greatness was never about that. Greatness to me is about people who made this world a better place to live in, by their good example. I once had such a man in my life. A grandfather who believed in me and told me that greatness was rooted in humbleness and honesty. Because if you had that, you had credibility and respect and if you were someday buried in a gold-plated casket and laid to rest under a monument that dwarfed all of the others in the graveyard, -- but didn’t have credibility and respect-- you had nothing.
There has been a steady erosion of the ideals that made this country great lately. I think its because you can’t get there anymore with honesty and humbleness. Instead, people are rewarded with leadership positions by lying and false bravado. How can you trust anyone who resorts to this kind of behavior, to farther their cause? Maybe it’s expecting too much in today’s world to be rewarded for good behavior. Maybe the new norm is whatever it takes to get there. If that’s true then I for one am glad I lived on this earth for the greatest part of my life, when it wasn’t true. The sadness in this is the world must go on, and go on it will, but gone will be the building blocks that once defined this country. I can only look at the children who inherit it from us and say I’m sorry for all of the problems. Show us the right way.
It is my wish that someday when my time comes people will say his was a life well lived. That he too was a good example, just like my grandfather and Leo were.
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