While vacationing in New Hampshire many years ago, I attended a play at The Peterborough Players. The front of the barn that housed the playhouse is paved cobblestones engraved with the names and dates of donors.
One of them caught my eye.
Instead of announcing a donor’s name, this particular stone simply stated, “It goes by fast.”
It took my breath away. It stirred me awake.
It goes by fast.
My life is flying by, I thought. If I don’t pay attention, I’m going to miss it. What can I do to make time slow down?
What can I do to live more fully?
I couldn’t shake those words. It was like an angel had delivered a very special message—one that I needed to hear.
Some wise soul paid to put a reminder on that stone, and I am sure that thousands have walked over it, perhaps only a few seeing its message.
Those words penetrated my soul that day and every day since.
Our precious lives go by fast.
In a blink of an eye our children are grown up. In what seems like a flash, we are old.
Those words are a reminder to soak in the experience of our precious lives, to lie down in the grass and look up at the stars. They are a reminder to suck the marrow out of each moment and experience life to the edges of our potential.
May we savor our moments here and never have the gut-sinking sense that it went by fast.
💜 CB
