That dash.
Not a dash of salt on an ambiguous splat of mashed potatoes...not a running dash from a bank heist laden with bags of cash...not a dash of carefully chosen paint on a well-loved bedroom wall...
THAT DASH.
The fact that someday I will be merely a dash on a headstone is a sobering reality.
As I input information into the museum and archive's data base, fussy as to its factual relevancy, to flesh out the lives of original settlers to the Mount Forest area, I question: Are they merely a dash to us now? Once a living, breathing, farting individual who loved and laughed and likely occasionally bawled in great sorrow, are they now just a dash on a page between their birth date and death date? Have they been forgotten?
Does leaving them in a cold corner of the cemetery in lichen-covered tombs make then irrelevant? Is their dash any less significant because they are neglected and unrecalled?
When Jeff's Great Aunt moved she granted my request that she not throw out but rather allow me to keep old family scrapbooks that her mother had compiled. As I sift through them, eyeing obituaries amongst handwritten recipes, poems unevenly scissored out of sepia-coloured newspaper neighbouring bible verses and lists of grocery needs and costs, I must remember diligently that these were once placed there by live, loving hands. Running my fingers across the uneven surfaces I feel a connection to the fact that another's warm, perhaps-calloused digits had to have done the same smoothing-of-paper action. Someone else's Dash created this collection.
How can I help to make a person more than just That Dash? How can I make the most of My Dash?
The Dash
by Linda Ellis copyright 1996
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?
