The Death Thing - 1/2

I love the one about the guy who gets a phone call from his doctor. “I’ve got good news and bad news” the doctor says. “Which one do you want first”. “Give me the bad news first” the guy replies. The Doc says, “Well you’ve only got 24 hours to live!” “Awe common Doc - you call that good news?! What could be worse than that?” the guy asks. “Well I got the test results yesterday!” replies the Doc. Ouch!

I slipped a mate of mine an email recently checking out how he was getting on. Just a little note along the lines of, “Hey Ray, haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s things”. The short story . . . he’s dead. Darn. I hate it when that happens. The long story . . .

I met the guy in Los Angeles around the turn of the century (Hoooeagh! I love saying that!). A really nice guy he was - Ray Revenaugh. I was up to LA chasing “love” and Ray was a church dude that was nice enough to put me up for a few weeks on the request of the local Pastor. I helped him out with his website and he gave me the keys to his house the couple of times I was up there.

It took me a couple of visits over a few months to work out that “love” didn’t really want to be chased - well certainly not by me at that time anyway. Scuttling back to New Zealand with my masculine pride only just in tact I then proceeded to help him out with his website (for the next five or six years!) and we had a good remote friendship. I slipped him a few emails now and then, one recently encouraging him to take a leadership role in some personal stuff, and I was pleased that he appreciated the encouragement. Well so he says, (um actually now it should be past tense) said!

LA is a fair distance from NZ and even though every year we planned for him and his missus to pop down here for a New Zealand tour, it never happened. Sadly it won’t be happening now. Darn. I know that he would have enjoyed New Zealand.

Apparently Ray had a heart attack while riding his bike and that was it. The Maoris call it “ko mate’. Life over. And now there’s a bunch of sad people in LA.

It’s a scary thing this death thing. One minute things are all go-go-go and the next its no-no-no-go. I was in shock for a while actually - thinking “Man what happened? Did he get run over, get mugged, have a car accident, a heart attack or what?” One minute I’m pestering him to see how he’s getting on and the next I’m reading obituaries of the guy online - whew!

I’ve not had a truckload to do with dead bodies but the few I have seen haven’t really endeared themselves to me actually. They’re cold, and lifeless - sort of like a shell, or a house that used to house something, but doesn’t anymore. Kinda not really much use for anything anymore either when you’re in that state. Makes one want to do more while you’re alive actually, eh?

Then you gotta only say very nice things about them at the funeral. I know that you’ve got to be nice to those left behind, and tread carefully around the feelings but oh for a dose of reality please, sometimes.

One of my sisters married a guy that I didn’t really much like. I thought he was up-himself more than most (he probably thought the same about me, come to think of it!). But there are a couple of things he did that I’ll give him full credit for. First, despite the fact that he was like he was, he certainly was a great mate for my sister. They really were soulmates those two.

Secondly, he forbade any politically correct BS talk at his funeral. “I don’t want a whole bunch of stiffs guys standing around trying to say how great and wonderful I was” he is supposed to have said. “Just tell it like it is!” Good one, bro. That’s my kind of talk.

So at his funeral, that’s just what they said. His biking mates told us how he was a right royal **** at times, BUT that he was a good guy deep down, and how they missed him. That’s good honest straight shooting - and I like it.

The good book talks about threescore and ten (That’s 70 years by my reckoning). It’s a decent lifespan allocated to us mortals. Here are the words of King David, (son of Solomon):

The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
Psalm 90:10a

My mate Ray was a decade short of his allotment according to this scripture, but he lived it to the full, seeking daily to please his Maker, certainly with what time he did have.

That’s a good VICTUS IN AMBITUS man, making the most of every minute he had.