Thinking Out Loud, Volume DIV

He was sick, but no one could figure out what was wrong, so the old man just learned to deal with it, as the problem was getting worse. He was living near Natchitoches, Louisiana in the late 1800s, and he would occasionally black out for several minutes at a time. As days turned into months and months into years, his spells would occur more and more frequently, lasting progressively longer each time, until that final time which proved to be his undoing. He had no family, and it was the general rule of that era that the poor were buried without being embalmed, so his neighbors built him a pine box and planted him on his own property with a wooden marker with his name painted on it. As the decades came and went, the marker eventually decayed, leaving no sign of the grave. Years later, around 1940, some workers were digging in that area, and their shovels struck his coffin. They exhumed the box and opened it, where the saw his skeletal remains lying FACE DOWN, and there was evidence he had been trying to get out! He had been buried alive!! We could obviously find ample reason to be highly critical of his neighbors for being a little hasty in their efforts to get the job of burying him behind them, but I can't criticize since I'm guilty of the same thing. What about you? I'm not suggesting that you nor I have literally placed someone in a box and put them in the ground before they were dead, but we HAVE been guilty of writing someone off and putting them out of our lives when there was still hope for salvaging the relationship. We've burned bridges that should've been left intact. In fits of rage, we've spewed hurtful words toward others, which permanently severed our relationship with that person. And of course, we've also burned bridges when the hurtful words were directed toward us, and we just didn't give the other party time to "cool down" before writing them off. How many times have we given up on friends when they've made foolish decisions that sent their lives into a downward spiral? After all, it's them with the problem, not us. What are we most likely to do.....permanently write them off or pray for their restoration? Technically, when we've stayed the same while they've made the decisions to move toward a life that will eventually lead to a crash, it was them who walked away, but it's up to us to leave the door open for when that crash finally occurs. I'm thinking of a young friend right now who has made some decisions that can't have a happy ending. It frustrates me, but the day is coming when her world is gonna crash in around her, and she will need friends like me. Even though it doesn't look good now, there's still a flicker of hope that she will be back. If I'm too eager to write her off, she may lose her only hope. I understand that people die and must be buried. I realize that some broken relationships are beyond repair. The old man in this story was beyond the point of ever having his life the way it used to be, and as a result, any relationship with him would never be normal again, but he didn't need to be buried alive. I've had people destroy my trust in them, but that doesn't mean I can't maintain a more guarded relationship with that person. As long as there's life, there's hope. Let's just make sure we're not in too much of a hurry to start digging a grave. Preston