Beech Tree News Network

I was watching the interview with the woman who was shot while being interviewed by the journalist and camera man who were shot and killed a couple of weeks ago.  The woman, who spent several days recovering in the hospital, said her life had actually flashed before her eyes while she lay bleeding on the ground.  As she lay there, she thought, “You know, I’ve had a pretty good life, and I’m ready to go if it’s my time to go.”
    I’ve thought about her story a lot this week, about the memories that flashed before her eyes and made her feel that way, and I wondered what memories would make me feel as though I’d had a good life.  I don’t think they would be the big events.  I think the highlight reel would include things like the first time my granddaughter tasted a Hershey’s Kiss then sat by me on the couch as we emptied a whole mug-full.
    I would see my sister, Marsha, and my dad coming out of the Pepsi Cola building in Louisville, Marsha smiling, my dad carrying the record player she won in the WAKY radio contest.  I would see my sisters and me as kids, eating chicken boxes in the back seat at the Jerry’s Drive-in and playing softball in the field in front of our house on Ashes Creek.
    I would remember walking with my daughter, Nikki, up our driveway after she got off the bus in kindergarten; she would be picking up interesting rocks for me to put in a box under my bed.  Natalie would be twelve and eating her first lobster at a restaurant in Massachusetts.  Garey and I would be a young married couple on a hillside in the fall.  He would be holding a small instamatic camera out in front of us in order to take a “selfie” before the word had even been invented that described what he was doing.  (I still have the picture.)
    There would be a parade of animals going before my eyes, the horses, dogs and cats that have been part of my life.  I remember all of their names, from Lightening, the pony to Dougle, the cat to Milly, the dog.  I would be back in the old abandoned chicken coup, where a litter of puppies were born to a stray dog that wasn’t ours.  I would hold the small white furry one again, the one that was given away as I cried six weeks later.
    Sometimes, I think about what it will be like to stand before God as the film footage that is my life plays out in front of me.  I am a Christian by faith.  I believe in a merciful God and His forgiveness, but I don’t believe that translates into a free pass.  There are things I’ve said and done, attitudes I’ve held that are incongruous with what I profess.  If I don’t deal with those in the here and now, I wonder if I will have to watch those things pass before my eyes when I’m leaving this earth.  While there is still time, I guess I’d better get busy making more good memories.