I am going to just warn you now, this post will ramble but try to connect the dots at the end.
I just finished my walk about 20 minutes ago. And I thought about a lot of things, had a lot of dots on the paper of my mind. But let’s start in the middle of my walk.
There is a small cemetery, Sunset Memorial Gardens, that I walk past on one of my routes through my neighborhood. Sometimes, I stop to sit and reflect. Today was one of those days. As I sat down on a bench the “Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire” started to play in my earbuds. St. Elmo’s Fire is one of my favorite movies, so it got me thinking.
I took a couple of pictures to share on social media. I tend to take unique pictures on my walk just to share. While I was taking the photos I noticed that there were two fresh mounds of dirt. One of the grave sites did not have a date on the tombstone, but the second one did.
This is when the dots filled my head.
Here I was standing by her grave on January 4, 2026. Janice was just days away from the New Year when she passed away.
I, we all do to a degree, take time for granted. I have a specific pair of shoes I use for my walks. I am in the middle of logging the steps I take on my walks in these shoes for a blog post when I get new shoes.
I am assuming I will be here in 6 months. That I will be able to walk, to listen to music, to think, and write poetry.
For my faithful readers, you know that I’ve learned 6 months can change everything (A Tweet about a Death Goes Viral).
As I continued on my walk I was deep in thought about life. A poetic line came to mind, “There will come a time…” (I’ll share the poem later in the blog).
Thinking about the poem led me to something that has been heavy on my heart lately… about how much I have failed in accomplishing my big dreams. I let myself down all the time. I have books I want to write. I want to learn to play the piano (or at least write this song I have). I want to help people write better (this is an idea in the works).
But instead… I fail.
Like all of us, life tricks us into believing there is time. And the trick is that there is time… until there isn’t. And we don’t know when that time will end.
On the home stretch of my walk, I spotted an older couple walking their dogs on the golf course, at times holding hands waiting for their second dog to catch up.
It was a beautiful site and reminded me that no one knows how much time they will have. But we are all given a life. And we do get to decide on how we live it. Failing at dreams, walking on a 60 degree January day, or making it home to be a dad…when I got home my second daughter needed help getting her boomerang (she got for Christmas) down from the roof of the house.
Some dreams are so big they have to be accomplished everyday.
Ohhh, yeah, I wrote this poem while walking too. This is the draft from my notes. The final poem will be worked on later.
“There will come a time”
There will come a time
Because of a dead watch
When I will stop moving
My hands across my face
To check how well I shaved
To start a new day
There will come a time
Because of the sunset
That I will be encased in darkness
Like Orion
Dreams stuck in position
Of a constellation of the past
There will come a time
Because of the last page
That I will no longer
Be able to write
A single word of a poem
Or love letter for her to read
There will come a time
Because of the rules of LIFE
I will reach the end
Have no more turns to spin the wheel
Get an action card
Have a pet
Or fill my little green car
With people I love
One last thing, here is the song that played as I came home.
It is all Connected 