Gravel roads reached endlessly in every direction from my grandparents' farm, and the surrounding pastures and cornfields stretched even farther. A small stream cut through the heart of an acreage containing a few buildings that looked older than the dirt they were built on. Due to health problems, my grandfather had not farmed the land for years and consequently was selling off the machinery that he no longer needed.
At thirteen, I wasn’t very strong. But my older brother and I had arrived at the farm that March morning intending to help my grandfather move a large piece of equipment. A buyer would be by shortly to haul it away. After moving some old kitchen chairs, I looked back at my grandfather to see what I should do next. Then it happened.
As he was picking something up from the ground, he stood up quickly, grasping at his chest. Just before he collapsed onto his knees and then to his back, he told my grandmother, "Doris, get my nitros." But it was too late for heart medication. Those words would be his last. The following minutes ticked by like hours as we waited for emergency crews. Our futile attempts to revive him in the meantime went unrewarded, as he never regained consciousness.
Shortly before his death, my grandfather told some family members that he wouldn’t die until he finished something for my grandmother, though he wouldn’t say what that something was. We have all speculated, but no one is quite sure of his intentions. Most of us think he wanted to sell the farm so that my grandmother would not be burdened by it. However, his death came much sooner than anyone—even my grandfather himself—had expected. He didn’t even have the time to complete what he was planning.
Seeing my grandfather's unexpected and near-instant death left a deep and indelible footprint in my mind—a truth which has fossilized at the very center of my soul. Life is not merely fragile, but fleeting: Like a breath expelled into the frigid December air, it's visible for a brief moment, but once dissipated, is gone forever. Death grants no extensions for good intentions. When that final breath inevitably escapes, our work is complete. There can be no retractions, no revisions, no amendments to decisions that were made.
This has often led me to reflect on my own procrastination. And I'm not talking about selling farms. I'm speaking about things that can truly touch the lives of those around us—simple things we always mean to do. Good intentions are so cruel. They give hope that one's lack of doing will be vindicated by some future deed. Void of resolve, our inaction turns to inattention, and our inattention to apathy.
And apathy will render any life unfinished and unfulfilled.
