Today my wife is at the funeral of her uncle. When I spoke with her on the phone, she said her father, who is usually an emotionally reserved man, was nearly inconsolable as he stood at the casket, repeating his brother's name over and over. I do not know what he was thinking, but I can guess.
This relative experienced a tragedy early in life and in some ways never recovered. Although all the family members tried to help this individual over the course of his life, I can imagine that my father-in-law was thinking of what else he could have done to have helped his brother through the years.
With regard to our poverty discussion, I agree that people should work to their full potential. I agree that a person who is able bodied should not take a free handout. Yet I can never imagine a person standing at the graveside and saying to the departed, "I did too much for you." Consider the graveside test one more way of knowing.
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1 comment:
I agree that the person who can look at the coffin and say "I have done enough," is at least as rare, if not rarer than the person who can look at their wealth and believe, "I have enough"
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