Number our Days

Around noon today I was sending out an email reminder for an upcoming meeting when Lee, a lab tech from the vice chair's lab, burst into the office.

"Jin!" he said.

"What?" I asked. I'd never seen him look so agitated and shook up. I couldn't tell if he was speaking english or chinese to me at first.

"Jin!" he repeated. Then it hit me - Jin was another lab tech. She worked downstairs. She and I were close.

"What about her?" I asked.

"Her husband is dead!" Lee said.

I jumped up from my chair. "What?"

"Her husband is dead!" Lee said.

"How?" I asked, raising both hands to my heated cheaks.

"Suddenly!" he said, gesticulating in that typical Chinese way. "He was in a car accident!"

All the blood drained from my cheeks. "Was Jin with him?"

"She was driving!" Lee said.

I dropped into my chair again, unable to speak for a moment. "Is she ok?" I asked.

"Yes," Lee said. "Their son is also ok."

"Their son was in teh car too?" I cried. This just kept getting worse and worse...

"Yes," Lee said, "But he's ok."

I got up and paced to the other side of the office, my hands on my temples. I turned back to Lee "Where are they now?" I thought. Maybe I could go to them.

"Penssylvania," Lee said. He explained that Jin and her husband had a conference in Detroit and were taking their son along. They were driving through Pennsylvania when they had their accident.

"Is anyone with her?" I asked, horrified.

Lee said then that his wife as well as some other of Jin's friends were leaving immediately to go be with her. I was relieved to hear that. Lee and I talked a few more minutes.

"I'm so shocked," he said, showing me his shaking hands. "I don't know what to do." Then he looked me in the eyes and said "Life is so fragile."

When he left I went back into my office and sunk into the first available chair. My eyes moistened behind my hand as I thought about all the times I heard Jin's chearful voice call to me on the shuttle from the metro to our campus, then wave for me to sit with her; or how she was patiently teaching me Chinese; or how she took all the time in teh world to explain Chinese culture and holidays to me; or how she always asked after my health from the day I disclosed I was seeing a doctor for my malaise...

Sweet, gentle, kind Jin! No one in the department disliked her! She was always smiling! How would she feel when she woke up to find she was a widow? Worse still, when she recalls that she was driving?

I couldn't bear to think of her pain when that happened. I cried and prayed an extremely convoluted prayer. God understood though.

Later in the day we recieved a deliver. I checked who was on the address lable. My contenence clouded as I went to find Salty. He thought the box was for him, but I merely asked how to store it until it's owner returned. He gave me directions, then asked who it was for.

"Jin..." I said, my voice cracking.

"Oh..." he said, understanding everything without me having to explain.

I stored the box and wept over it.

Retreating to my office once again, I dropped my head to my hands and prayed.

"Why Jin, Lord? Sweet, pure Jin! She was the last to deserve this!"

I then felt a scripture come to me, one that I was working on memorizing.

Teach us to number our days, that we may have a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12. I'm sure God wasn't chiding me for grieving with and for Jin. But he wanted to put the spotlight on me for a few minutes, specifically on my sinful heart.

This verse is a prayer of Moses. He's basically beseaching God to help the people realize that their life is short, and with that perspective, act wisely, knowing that their time is limited. We shouldn't be focusing on the here and now, but on eternity.

I forget to do this very often. But with death invading my work day and the reality of mortality staring me in the face, my thoughts were drawn to the startling truth that all of us will one day meet our sudden end - it may be anticipated after a long fight with disease or it may be a surprise, but all of our deaths will be sudden and instantaneous. And in that briefest moment of time, we'll find ourselves in our eternity.

So I ask myself, how am I preparing for that day? Am I sowing to Godliness or am I sowing to the temporary? It's a worthy question, and if our prayer - with Moses - is to have a heart of wisdom born from realizing our mortality, we'll ask it more often.