We’ve started off the month with a few showers, and according to most of the elementary teachers that attempted to teach me many moons ago, those showers should produce May flowers. As the late Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” So in the spirit of Steve Jobs I will trust that my teachers were right.

All the signs are beginning to point towards spring. Baseball has thrown out its first pitch, outdoor pursuits of all sorts are revving up around town, I’ve scrounged around under my bed for my sandals, and the struggle to hold my students attention continues its upward trend. Winding down a semester always brings about reflection on the past year. What went right? What went wrong? What did my students learn? What did I learn?

When a semester wraps up, the reality is that there are some students that I may never see again. A friend of mine brought this point up once, and since then I have tried to keep that thought in the forefront as the semesters come to a close. Over the course of a semester, sometimes many semesters with some students, I get to know these young adults. I learn about why they came to college, why they chose their particular field of study, what they hope to do with their lives once their time at the college comes to a close.

Sometimes the end of the year sneaks up me, and before I know it they’re gone. My shot to bid them farewell in a proper manner squandered. So for those students that got away, I’d like to let them know that one shot at something as grand and glorious as life doesn’t seem fair, but it’s all we get, it’s all we have, it is all.

One go around, one time, our time is never to be again. Some have more, some have less, we all get some, but always want some more. Want more for us, want more for those that know us and make our time what it is. What’s not to want? A brief blink from dark to light to dark again. Through the ages many have, do, and will want more, but want will come without, and this world will move on as it always has, as it always will, for many rises and falls to come.

Some may see the beginning some may see the end. Neither is near us now so we see today, we remember yesterday, and hope for tomorrow. It all seems so slow, yet, as you will find, with age, it moves so very fast. Slow and fast, one never without the other. Who knew?

Questions will remain but we will not. We will all go. Most likely not willingly, but go just the same. Go and be gone, and hope to remain through the memories of those that stay. How deep will memories of you flow? Thinly stir the surface, and then vanish without a trace, silently slipping into the ages, or rip and tear the earth leaving a wake of remembrance stretching your life well beyond your life?

Either is not entirely up to us. Much is up to those that knew us, and those that are to know them, and know them, and know them, and…

Where and with whom do we stop? When does our life truly cease to be remembered? Cease to make a sound amongst the living? When will our last light go out?

Later, rather than sooner one would hope, or maybe one does concern themselves with such thoughts. Thoughts are silent in a world that is loud with life. Speak, write, paint, build, do…whatever voice suits you. One life, one time. Be loud with your life.