THE MAN ON THE GROUND ------------written by Tom Walsh I had a sad experience last week at a road race in the town where I live. It was a Halloween race, 4.5miles, and about sixty people participated. We had a nice morning, much warmer than we might have expected for the end of October, and the race itself was a lot of fun. After I had been in for a few minutes, though, I noticed a group of people huddled over something on the ground about fifty feet from the finish lie. I went over to see what it was just as the paramedics arrived. It was one of the competitors, a man in his fifties. He was lying on his back completely motionless, and someone was giving him CPR until the paramedics took over and started to do the same thing, adding shots and electronics to the attempt. It was pretty plain to see, though, that he was already dead. Although the paramedics did everything they could, they weren’t able to bring him back to life. What had started out as a fun morning for everyone had taken on a bit of a darker hue. It seemed, though, that almost no noe who havd run the race knew him personally, so while there was plenty of concern among the runners, there was not a whole lot of mourning. Besides,when they put him onto the ambulance and took him away, none of the paramedics actually told us that he was dead, so nobody really knew for sure. I found myself wondering, though, how his morning had been. What had been his last wordes to his wife? To his chldren? To his friends? What had he done the day before? The week before? What had been his last contributions to his planet of ours and its people? I know that one day my body will be lying somewhere, completely spiritless after I die. My hope is that when that time comes, I won’t be leaving many thing left unsaid. I hope that I will have told the people I love that I love them, and I hope that my last words to no one will have been words of anger or discouragement. I hope that even if today was my last day, my last words to anyone might have been words of encouragement, love, and peace. I probably won’t leave a great legacy of public works; I probably won’t be at all in the public eye when I go. The people to whom my death will truly matter will be very few, but that’s fine with me. I hope that what I leave them will be positive and uplifting, so that they may pass on those qualities to others in there lives. And I hope that when I do go, I don’t have tons of unfinished business, many things left unsaid, many tasks that matter to other people left undone. I found out the man’s name in the newspaper the next day, but when all is said and done his name isn’t the most important part of who he was. He was a human being who was here on this planet to be the best he could be, to give the most he could give. His time came when it came, just as our will, and now he’s gone. It ‘s a rather sad irony that his last moment came just fifty feet from the finish line of his last race, but wherever he is right now, I’m sure he doesn’t care---it may even be worth a laugh to him. His many years of life are now over, and he has moved on. But he didn’t go without leaving a message, and a very important one: Don’t leave without having said the things you need to say or showing the love you ought to show. And since none of us know when our time may come, it’s very important that we live by this princple very day so that when we do die( and we will ), we’re able to move on with a bit of peace, knowing that we’ve done all we can and all we need to do. I’m pretty sure that when he got up that morning, he didn’t know that he would be dead in a few hours. When the race began, I doubt that he knew that would be dead in half an hour. If he had known, what might he have done differently with his last few days, I won’t wish that I had done anyghing differently. If I can reach that point in my life, then my life will be much, much easier, and many more people will benefit much more from my presence in their lives. This moving story has a powerful message and lesson. We never know where or when our life will end. Don’t get so caught up in being busy and chasing money and success that you forget how important it is to care about others, especially the people closest to you. Sometimes thinking about death is the only way to gain perspective on what is important in life. This story is definitely worth reading, worth repeating and worth sharing with all your friends.
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