Last night Julia and I went to a fund raising dinner for the National Brain Tumor Society. We are interested in this charity because one of Julia's uncles died as the result of a brain tumor several years ago, and as a result his daughter, Mary Catherine, became heavily involved in funding for research and wound up on the Board of the Society. We had a nice dinner and picked up some good wine at the silent auction (I bid on the one's Mary Catherine suggested - she's really an oenophile). But the reason I'll remember the night is the company at the table where we were seated.
I sat beside two gentlemen who were involved in the Society because of the impact of brain tumors on their families. One has a daughter who is a survivor, and one had a son who died at age 14. As they talked, they moved each other to tears, and of course reduced me to mush.
I suppose there are all kinds of lessons one could take away from a night like that, but I was struck again by something that has been on my mind a lot for the past few years: no matter how much we think we are in control of our lives, and no matter how comfortable we may be with the things and the people around us, the one sure truth in this life is that our existence is not static. The change isn't always for the good, but change is coming. Life moves on, we lose the comfort of friends and family, and we all leave behind unrealized opportunities to make the space around us a better place.
That's a rambling way to say that I realized again how important it is to find opportunities wherever they present themselves, and to make a difference in the world immediately around us, even it it's only, as one of my dinner companions put it, "emptying the ocean with a teaspoon."
The subject line of this entry comes from a Phil Ochs song, which is one of my favorites. He wrote:
"There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone,
and I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone . . .
I can't add my name into the fight when I'm gone,
so I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here."
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