By Dan Barber
The countdown has started. In the past few years I have tried to slow down and enjoy every day as it came. At times in the past I marked off days on the calendar like a mad man until a set goal or event was achieved. I finally realized by doing that I didn’t enjoy each of those days as I should have, they represented just another day.
Have you ever come to realize that chasing a goal was a lot more fun then actually reaching the goal? Later in life I realized that if you find the greener grass on the other side of the hill you may have to mow it.
Sometimes my goals were well worth achieving. It might have been getting married, the end of a tour of duty with the Navy, it could have been graduating from a school, or the birth of a child… now it is the end of a career. I will be retiring from the Navy for a second time on the final work day of September 2013… the first time I retired from the Navy was in July 1989 after serving 20-years on active duty. This time I will be retiring from the Navy after marking off another 20-year career, but this time as a civilian employee… in May of next year I will be getting a 40-year federal length of service pin, which will probably end up in the “junk” drawer with the rest of my career memorabilia… what is important to me is the fact that regardless of the consternation of some politicians I will start collecting 3 federal government pension checks, Navy, Civil Service and Social Security.
I look back on the days of my life thinking they have gone by in a flash… maybe I regret not taking the time each of those days to enjoy them as I might have at the time. There are the memories of special moments in those days that I have saved in my mind that I hope won’t fade away. For example one of those special moments I experienced was on an airliner as I was headed home from Vietnam, we were flying over the Pacific Ocean at night, and I swore to myself that I would not forget the reflection in the plane’s window at that time because it meant that I was headed home and it was one of the happy times in my life.
Maybe the days aren’t as important as the memorable moments are… the special moments we will always remember… it’s possible we won’t remember the date, time of day or even the year, but the moment will stay with us forever… when we met our spouse, (July 8, 1968… the same day I originally joined the Navy), the day when I first got to hold one of my children or one of my grandchildren.
There are the sad moments of course, but hopefully the millions of happy moments will outweigh the sad ones. I mentioned in an earlier post that perhaps our experience in Heaven will be the ability to relive the wonderful moments of our lives as if it were the first time. My father told me this in a dream about two weeks after he passed away… my Dad never lied to me.
That idea of Heaven sort of makes sense to me of having an eternal life without sorrow or worry, but only happiness.
When I start on my retirement career next year I may not have to mark off each day on the calendar, or even know what day of the week it is… hopefully on purpose. But I will strive every day to collect as many memorable moments that I can so one day… you know, experience them as many times as I want in my future ‘after-life.’ And in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy every working day that I have left.
