Memorial Service

This morning my family and I attended the worship service that always marks the end of the Reunion Weekend at the local university. This is where we attended, but this wasn't our reunion year - last year was. However, my husband had been asked to speak for a few minutes about Haiti. One of the traditions in this service is to honor those who have died since the last reunion. For the reunion classes, names and photos are shown of everyone who died in the past five years; for other classes, they only show those who died in the past twelve months.

This year I was more struck by this than I usually am. I saw two faces that I recognized, both of people younger than I am, and one of them had been one of my students. But I also kept thinking that our pictures could have been up there this year; we could so easily have died in the earthquake. And I also thought, Some day our pictures WILL be up there.

Every day is a gift; we know this well. But these days I am constantly aware of it. I am grateful for every moment of life and I want to live well in the moments that I have, to honor God and love the people around me.