Recently I came across a very nice lady who was going to purchase a fake, rubber snake. The lady was going to wrap the rubber snake as a holiday gift and give it to her brother, who is scared of snakes.
This act was going to be retaliation for last year, when her brother had given her a literal box of rocks as a gift.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what the holidays are about? Sticking it to the people who have done you wrong.
Only kidding, only kidding.
The holidays can be a good time to think about gratitude — but really any day or time can be good for reflecting on good fortune.
When I think about gratitude and good fortune and things like that, I think about Hailey Taylor, a Warren County resident who died of a brain tumor at age 15 in 2014.
Why in the world would someone like Hailey Taylor, who was the sweetest person you could meet, be so unlucky as to die of an illness while her friends and peers were carefree and thinking about grades and friends and clothes and boys? Why did she have to endure that?
Some questions have no answer.
If there is an answer, it may have something to do with randomness and chance and life being unfair.
There is a pastor in Manchester by the name of Mark Barron and Mr. Barron in his sermons often says that the most important thing in life is relationships with people, that little else matters when compared with that.
This holiday season, this New Year, really anytime — you need to be loving on the people you care about (during the pandemic, love on them with your words). Tell them what you love about them and like about them. Say what you need to say.
Life is precarious. You and the people you love will be gone one day. It could be today, it could be tomorrow. You really never know.
However, when your time comes it is unlikely that your guardian angel is going to approach you and say, “You should be dead right now, but you know what? Since you’re a great person, I am going to give you the opportunity to tell everyone you love how much you care about them. Take all the time you need.”
It does not happen that way. You will not get that eleventh hour/near-posthumous opportunity, more than likely.
So it may sound cheesy, but by golly, I don't care. Be thankful for the nearness of the people you love. Tell them you care about them. Tell them what you love about them, tell them you appreciate them.
Take inspiration, if you need to, from this line from the Elton John song “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters:”
“I thank the lord there are people out there like you, I thank the lord there are people out there like you.”
Feel free to practice this appreciation during the holidays. Feel free to practice it any day.
Luke Cameron can be reached at 473-2191.