Tell them today...

 

I’ve attended too many funerals lately. No…that’s not right. Funerals are something that we do to honor those that have died. It’s not an obligation. It’s a sign of respect.

If you live long enough, you’re going to find that this is something you do more and more. I know I fight the notion, but I am old and, hopefully, getting older, so I find myself attending those things.

Each of us grieve in our own way. Some public, some private. Funerals, to me, are more about those left behind. The family. The spouse.

I counted up recently how many times I’ve been back to my hometown.  Of the 10 or so times I could remember, only a couple were for anything but a funeral.

I missed the funeral of my high school football coach, Coach Bert “Chig” Ratledge. I was traveling. Same thing for Dr. Gary Dutton, another football coach and mentor.

I was able to see both of them not long before they died, and they knew very clearly how important they were to my life and my successes.  They both always told me they were proud of me. I don’t think they could understand how important that was to me. 

And that’s lesson number one for today. Tell those that have been important to you, at whatever stage in life they were present, what that meant to you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—teachers and coaches have a profound influence on who we are, who we become, even how we see the world.  I was blessed to have many of those in my life.

Always, those coaches.  Mrs. Smith, my physics and chemistry teacher. Dr. Barrett, English teacher at UT.  Dr. Ed Headlee, senior English teacher at my high school and Explore Post director. Ruth Mulvaney, my favorite teacher in PT school.

My little Daddy.  Quiet. Uneducated. Hard working. He taught me to love education.  He taught me to aspire to be a better man. He instilled in me integrity, trustworthiness, and dependability.

Those Boy Scout leaders, too many to mention. I wish I could remember which one of them selected me at 12 to be a Patrol Leader of a new patrol, because that is what set me on my path of leadership.

That opportunity taught me the value of teamwork, that you lead from the front, that the team is greater than its parts.  It taught me that leadership was all about service to others, even though we never expressed it that way. The concept of “servant leader” was to come along much later.

The Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. The Boy Scout slogan—Do a good turn daily.  I can still recite the Boy Scout Law. A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.

The Boy Scout oath: “On my honor, I will do my best….” If you know, you know.

Tell somebody today that you love them. Tell those that have made a difference in your life how much you appreciate them and what they did for you. It might be your last chance.