This past week my little hometown of Vale, Oregon suffered a heavy loss. A young man took his life. I won’t pretend that he was my best friend or that I even knew him all that well, but maybe that makes his death all the more tragic. This young man was someone who grew up in the same tiny town as me, just one year behind me in school, someone with his own dreams and heartaches, and I never truly knew him. Now, I’ll never have the chance.
In the days after the incident, as I scrolled through Facebook, I noticed a strange dichotomy between the people in Vale and the people in Salem. All of my friends from back home were posting photos of themselves with this young man, saying how much they were going to miss him, and what a great guy he was. Meanwhile, all my Corban friends were carrying on with life, laughing, smiling, completely unaware that just a few hours away a young life had been snuffed out and a community was in emotional upheaval. It struck me then just how short and delicate our lives are. In an instant, we cease to exist, but the world carries on. We are all just tiny blips of light, glowing on the surface of the sun.
So my appeal to all of you is this: Please, please, don’t take the time you have for granted. Don’t take the time of those around you for granted either. Love the people in your life deeply, because you never know when their time will come, or when your time will come. Every text, every voicemail, every word you speak could be your last. Don’t live with the pain of knowing you missed the chance to tell the people you love just how much they mean to you. Don’t let angry words hang between you; forgive and forget. Life is too short to hold onto grudges and harbor bitterness.
And don’t take the people around you for granted either, the ones you interact with but don’t know well. The clerk at the store, the attendant who pumps your gas, the person you see around campus but you’ve never spoken to; they are someone’s sibling, someone’s child, cousin, best friends, and significant other. Treat them with kindness and respect, because just like you, they are human. They have their own lives full of their own blessings and curses, their own battle and victories, their own story.
Life is short. Please, don’t take any of it for granted; not one second, not one person, not one struggle, not one miraculous life that you come into contact with. Because once a moment passes you cannot get it back.
To the Montgomery family and their close friends, I am so very sorry for your loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I wish there was more I could do to ease your suffering, but all I can offer are my sympathies and my prayers. As small a comfort as those may be, they are yours.
