Yesterday, Greg and I went to the funeral of a dear friend’s mother.
It was a very sad occasion and the past couple of years have been very trying on the family given the declining health of a wonderful woman.
I realized a few things during the church service.
- I don’t have a huge family and I only really know about 10 people. I have a lot of acquaintances but I could probably count my very close friends on one hand and those friends’ parents on the other. What I’m saying is I could not fill a church to standing room only given my current social status.
- The average person (if I was in fact surrounded by average people) knows the tune and lyrics to random hymns sung in a church. Regardless of whether they have the words in front of them or not, they know when to emphasize the word “follow” to sound like “fa….ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-fo-ll-ow him” whereas I just belt out “follow” followed by a fake cough to fill in the “ah-ah-ah” part and then I stop singing altogether while being hypnotized by the photo of the lighthouse with the wooden path on the front of the program.
- These same people can also identify words like “pilar” that I might pronounce “pillar” but they would instinctively know was pronounced “pee-lash” which when sung sounds nothing like pillar. I coughed a lot after that one.
- The Lord’s prayer when sung is totally unrecognizable. Yesterday a woman sang the Lord’s prayer as an opera. She had a beautiful, soprano voice and I actually knew all of the words but there was no way I could have joined in because I would have required vocal cord surgery had I tried to hit even one of the notes.
- I really love a good tea sandwich.
- Work, trivial things we fill our days with, things that consume us with worry don’t mean a thing.
Spend your life surrounded by people you love, doing things you love and when you are able, volunteer your time helping a friend in need.
Oh, and learn to read music. That just makes good sense.
