I'll Be 80 Soon

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week,
But I'll be 80 soon.

And then I will no longer look forward to my life;
I'll look back on what I did with it.

I realize now that I could never work hard enough
or do things great enough in this life
to ever achieve "no regrets."

"I could have done more," my elderly flesh will prod;
"If only I had known then what I know now."

"And what I know now at 80 years of age
is that everything under the sun will fade
And that the only true moments of life that I've made
Are those moments when I loved a neighbor
Are those moments when I heard a friend
Are those moments I reached out to a stranger
Are those moments I didn't pretend."

"Shame that is took me these twenty-nine thousand and two hundred days
To finally make sense of what was worth all that wait:
The world was drowning slowly and I knew that they would die,
But I stayed safe on the lifeboat and turned a blind eye."

Maybe not next birthday, maybe not next year,
But I'll be 80 soon
And their death is my biggest fear.

"Only one life and it will soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last." - Unknown Author