Recently, one of my dearest friend's grandfather passed away.  I met him once, and he was precious... the kind of person we need more of in this world.  Over incredible waffles we talked about her grandfather's life:  her favorite stories, memories, and things she never knew about him after his death.


She told those cherished grandparent stories that make us yearn for the wisdom and perspective that coincides with age, but something she mentioned that resonated deep inside me was his relationships.  Her grandparents never divorced, and they were faithfully in love with each other until the end.  My grandparents are the same way, and I think it's incredible.  I hope to love someone that deeply and share my life so closely with a man I call my best friend.  It's tough to find love like that anymore, but I believe it's possible with commitment and humility.  Her grandfather was devoted to his friends as well.  His college buddies came to his memorial service and spoke about their friendship that spanned decades.  When she told me this, my heart got melty, and I had one of those great images of us as old, crinkly ladies drinking tea on the porch and laughing about the silliness of our twenties, lessons of our thirties, vacations of our forties and beyond.  And I saw us sipping cocktails on cruises.  And being excited about positive pregnancy test results and adoption approvals instead of haggardly-stressful scares.  And our hypothetical children chasing each other and high-fiving in parks (after abandoning the uterus strike, of course). 


Our lives aren't really about the beginning or the end, even though we prepare for births and memorialize death.  We're really about (or should be about, I think) the middle-the dash on the tombstone-the every day stuff.  I want to be somebody consumed with investing the middle in the things and people I love most.  It's a little odd thinking about death and memory as a 23-year-old, but even so, I hope my life will look something like her grandfather's.  Maybe not the Hawaiian shirts (I don't actually own one of those...) but definitely the love and joy.