My Father's Brother

My father's brother died yesterday.

He was in fact my uncle, but I say "My father's brother" because of all my aunts and uncles, he was the one which we least saw - in fact, in the last 20 years I have probably saw him three times. "Uncle" can be as much of an honorific as it can be a statement of relationship.

His life was a series of ups and downs, partially brought on by conditions beyond his control - Type I childhood diabetes and the resulting health concerns which dogged him all his life at time when so much less was known, at least one business failure - and partially by decisions which he made which did not turn out well (as if we always made decisions which do). He usually lived far away and so we did not often see them, although I wonder now if that not only the simple fact of living busy lives as it was an conscious output on both sides to keep the peace.

The talk with my father ironically came at the end of a long day that I was feeling drained: a long day of preparing and re-preparing for the presentation to senior management tomorrow, followed by a quick dinner with the family to celebrate Valentine's day and then running off to Iaido class - the pressures of modern living, one could say.

And all of a sudden, the pressure comes off.

Death is the great perspective adjustor. We can profit from it when it happens around us, taking heed to the matters that are truly important versus what we convince ourselves are important, and change the way we live. Alternately, we can see what happens and learn nothing from it - which will turn out to be the biggest surprise to us when we suddenly realize that there is simply o more time to do anything and those tasks and items we put off to "someday" have suddenly been put off to "never".

It's trite but it's true: If you knew you would die tomorrow, what would you change about how you lived today?