Perhaps it's an overly long winter, or the doom of an impending birthday divisible by ten, but my thoughts lately have turned toward mortality, toward my "dash". This is an idea suggested by Linda Ellis in her poem and subsequent book, The Dash: "It's not the date you were born, or the date that you died, that really matters. It's the dash between those years and what you do with it to make a difference with you life."
For some reason, when I think of Ellis's "dash", I think of a small graveyard near Boston Commons shaded by trees as old as the commonwealth. Just beyond an iron fence that borders the sidewalk and busy street stands an upright, weather-worn grave with a collection of mourner's stones placed on it. The writing on a plaque screwed to the stone reads: "Here lies Buried Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of the Commonwealth, A Leader of Men and an Ardent Patriot. 1722-1803."
That downtown Boston graveyard is filled with tombs of other founders of the country, yet even significant, brave lives are finally commemorated in just a few words, numbers, and a horizontal dash chiseled between birth and death. All of their studies, their speeches, their writings, their dreams and despair -- all of it equally summarized in a short incised line worn smooth by passing years.
Our challenge, it seems to me, is to carve our dash as deeply as we can. Some do this by raising families who will continue their name through generations. Teachers continue on through their students. Creative types draw, build, mold, and write. Others make their mark through career or community effort. Some, like Samuel Adams, may even leave a historical mark on world prompting generations to leave a stone on their grave as a gesture of respect. Deep down we understand our mortality, but we strive to leave behind something deeper than a shallow indent in the space of time.
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