When a high school classmate dies, I look at his or her yearbook picture. It may have been the last time I saw that person face-to-face. It gets harder to look at those pictures now. Knowing what time has done to those once youthful faces. Knowing that those faces will never again feel the sun.

Death visited our class early, and it has dogged us since. I lost one of my good friends before our ten-year reunion. Others were lost far too soon. As we enter the latter half of our fifties, a death announcement still comes as a shock. But we know those announcements will become more frequent as time goes on.

One day, someone will announce ours.

Time robs us of our health, our looks, our innocence, and our loved ones. But it gives us experience to learn from, pain to make us stronger, and loss to make us appreciate the people who grace our lives. So we take a moment to stop, mourn, comfort, and most of all, to appreciate.

We walk together for only a short time, and we don’t know when it will end. The recessional plays for us. Let’s enjoy this brief time together before we depart.