TEX IS DEAD!

Tex died yesterday. I doubt any of you knew Tex. I didn't, and I was his next door neighbor for more than two years. You know how it is. Both of us working, doing our " thing," just "takin' care of business." Tex was a manager in an automobile dealership, and the goings and comings from his 12-hour-day, six-day week dedication was all of Tex I knew.

It may be different for you, but when anybody I even remotely know dies, my brain begins to rearrange priorities seemingly against my will. I start talking to myself more than usual using phrases like, "In the grand scheme of things...." and then desperately try to figure out, what the heck is the grand scheme of things?

Tex knew for about six months that he was dying. I wonder if during those last six months he ever felt angry or frustrated over the car sales he was unable to close during his years of hard work, or the weeds that were beginning to take up permanent residence in his lawn. I wonder whether he worried about the potential sale of the car dealership to an out-of-state company. I wonder if he concerned himself over what his boss thought of him or what his neighbors thought of him. I wonder if he stayed awake at night considering the effectiveness of the new advertising campaign, his receding hairline--or maybe none of those things made any difference to Tex in "the grand scheme of things."

I saw a bumper sticker that read, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." The "main thing" and "the grand scheme..." both boil down to one word--priorities. It is only natural that Tex's priorities were different when he knew this life was coming to an end. My guess is that spectacular southwestern sunsets and sunrises looked even more special to Tex as his "days dwindled down to a precious few." Spending time with the family, grilling chicken fajitas on the Weber, cutting the grass and taking out the garbage, routine events often taken for granted, I am sure, were savored.

Most of us don't know how much of life we have left. Six months, six years, or sixty years? What do you do with your time? Chronobiology is an emerging science that studies how time interacts with life, but do you need a science? Time is how you partition your lives between birth and death. You don't have time, waste time or save time you can only spend time. Do you spend your waking moments deeply concerned over how your carpet is wearing, or do you spend the precious present sitting around glassy-eyed watching spiders spinning webs?

Spiders, glass eyes or anything in between, is fine as long as you understand you will never ever get that time back again. What would Tex do?

Lesson: You're dead a lot longer than you're alive; use alive time wisely.