The Body Is A Temple

o, is the body a temple? Short answer: I agree. Yet, this is true only during the time when it is producing, when it is the vehicle to take us places in this life. Temples fall. When death robs us of our loved one and their body, it hurts. It would do us well to view the body as a shell and in the case of Pop, only as a partial housing of what it once was in younger, healthier, stronger days.
Lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, cancer in general, heart failure, ALS…all horrid diseases. All of them and the like rob us of the body and doubly bring sorrow at the time when they come to thieve us. Yet, none of them – not one – can take from us the love, the memories, the images, the voice, the laugh, the smile…in short, the SPIRIT of our loved one.

Just last week, a great friend of mine, Darrin Amore, gave me Tuesdays With Morrie to read as we were discussing my dad’s rapidly approaching and imminent passing. Turns out and mercifully, it was more rapidly approaching than we had expected. Love lives on is the main take away I got from that book. I already knew this but it was a beautiful reminder that the passing of my 85 year old dad is a celebration of life. Not a celebration of the past few years when failing health and some memory issues overtook the body and messed with the mind. No, this is a celebration of the entire 85 years, 10 months and 4 days of Pop’s life. Quick! Think of a memory of Pop.

Okay, ready? I bet it wasn’t anything to do with the past two years, was it? You see, the memories, the good times, the laugh, those patented Hank-isms, the spirit…that is what lives on in us. None of those “robbers” can take any of that from us. Ever!

Another take away from Tuesdays With Morrie and something that I mentioned at Uncle Joe’s memorial service almost 12 years ago was to KEEP IN TOUCH. Pop had, as did his brother Joe, a gift for this. They would stay in touch with high school friends, marine buddies, old co-workers, and most impressively of all, relatives. I mean more than most people. It would amaze me when Uncle Joe would tell my dad whom he talked to, called, visited, etc. I learned the use of this gift from Pop and Uncle Joe and it is something that I cherish and try to carry on throughout the year and years: calling old friends , college buddies, teachers, old co-workers and relatives, too.

Staying in touch. Everybody’s busy, all the time these days. I get it. Yet, if you could do one final thing for Hank…please take a few minutes to reach out to someone today whom you’ve been meaning to call, but haven’t “had the time” or because it is too much trouble. Reach out to someone TODAY. You can make someone’s day. You know there is someone whom you’ve been thinking of lately.

Act now! You will we glad you did. And, please don’t simply friend them on Facebook. Call them. Visit them. Reconnect with them. Time is precious. Live in the moment. Make more memories, more images, more smiles, voice your love and know that those precious things, the most important of things, will always live on. Do it for Hank. It, unlike so many other things to him, would NOT have been too much trouble to do. He would have done it. Just like they did it in the old country.