The quiet dash

By Herman M. Lagon

Early this month began like any other.

Then my daughter called. Nothing dramatic. Just the kind of call parents receive once in a while. But this one was different. She sounded unusually quiet. After a few seconds, she finally said that one of her close friends at work had passed away. A viral infection. Young. A mother of three. Healthy, as far as everyone knew. Someone who, by all accounts, still had many years ahead of her—or at least that’s what we like to believe when people our children’s age suddenly leave.

We were still talking about that when another sad piece of news reached us over the weekend. My mother’s closest friend had died of a heart attack. Then, before this week is over, another message appeared on my phone. A colleague from our university. A respected scientist. Barely two years retired. This was supposed to be his time—to slow down and enjoy the ordinary days.

Three people. Three different lives. Different stories.

Yet all of them left behind the same quiet reminder.

For days, I could not shake the feeling that life does not always change over months or years. Sometimes, it changes with a single phone call.

I have always found it curious how ordinary everything looks after someone dies.

The sun still rises. Coffee still tastes like coffee. Students still rush to class. Vendors still call out to customers at the public market. Diversion Road remains as congested as ever.

The world carries on. But you don’t.

The smallest things suddenly feel bigger. You text your mother for no particular reason. You stay a little longer after dinner. You stop saying, “Maybe next week,” because you’re no longer as sure there will always be a next week.

Years ago, when people were talking about the supposed end of the world in 2012, many dismissed it—and rightly so. But I perhaps those doomsday predictions did one thing well: they reminded people to think about how they were living. Not because the world was ending, but because each of us has always lived without any promise of tomorrow.

That thought has stayed with me far longer than the prediction itself.

Teachers understand this more than most. Every school year begins with good intentions. We keep saying, After this, life will be easier. After graduation. After accreditation. After one more semester.

But there’s always another “after this.” Before long, another year has passed.

Life seems to feel faster because we have become obsessed with getting more done. Maybe that’s true. We save time wherever we can, yet somehow we always feel we are running out of it. We’ll visit our parents after this project. We’ll call an old friend when things become less busy. Yet life has a habit of replacing one deadline with another. The “right time” keeps moving farther away.

Seneca wrote nearly two thousand years ago that life is not short; we simply waste much of it. I suspect he was not talking only about idleness. Sometimes we waste life by becoming so busy making a living that we forget to actually live.

We have always known something that modern life keeps trying to erase. We gather. Birthdays. Sunday lunches. Fiestas. Wakes. Reunions. Not because tradition demands it, but because somewhere deep inside, we know relationships deserve time.

Even that is changing.

Instead of dropping by, we send a heart emoji. Instead of making the call, we say, “Maybe this weekend.” Before we know it, weeks become months, and “soon” quietly turns into another Christmas.

Artificial intelligence can write emails, summarize books, even help draft columns like this one. I use it often. It saves time. But it still cannot notice that your lolo has begun telling the same story every time you visit. It cannot hear the pause behind your child’s “I’m okay.” It cannot sit beside someone who is grieving and simply stay there.

Some things were never meant to be automated.

On every gravestone is a tiny dash between two dates. Most people glance past it. But inside that little line is a lifetime. How long it lasts isn’t ours to decide. But we do choose what fills it.

So today, if someone crosses your mind, don’t wait. Make the call. Stay a little longer after dinner. Visit your parents. Tell your children you’re proud of them.

The dishes can wait. The emails will still be there tomorrow. The people we love may not always be.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.