Last Sunday I did a 5K walk as a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. This sheet was in the registration packet:

Sure, “your event is not timed” means that no one was checking our pace with a stopwatch. (Actually a sundial would’ve sufficed for me.) But it struck me that you could also assign a different — and much deeper — meaning to that. I was participating in the walk in memory of a college friend of mine, Kim Collins, who died suddenly of a heart attack last May at the age of 52.

Kimberly Ann Collins Obituary

Nearly 30 of Kim’s relatives and friends participated in the walk.

Kim’s siblings Drew, Lisa and Jimmy

Kim and her sister Lisa lived together, worked together, spent nearly every waking moment together… they were inseparable. Kim went to bed early on a Friday because she was having back pain… she never woke up.

“Your event is not timed.” The event is life, and it’s not timed for any of us. We never expected to lose Kim so soon. Lisa never imagined she’d be without her only sister/roommate/best friend in the blink of an eye. We may think about mortality from time to time, but do we ever truly appreciate the good fortune of merely waking up each morning?

Your event is not timed. Now’s the time to be grateful for each day on this earth, and share that gratitude with those we love.