Last Sunday was the 2004 LakeShoremen Banquet. You may recall that I didn’t attend for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was the two-hour drive. Anyway, I had assumed—or, perhaps, just hoped—that someone would miss me. That I’d catch some flak from someone for not being there. That someone would tell me that I’d won some award or other, and that they’d have it for me at the first 2005 rehearsal.
But alas. Nothing.
My egotistic assumption that someone would miss me at the banquet reminded me of a poem my Mom taught me long ago, that I’d nearly forgotten (and Google managed to remind me):
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom,
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow this simple instruction
And see how it humbles the soul.
Take a bucket and fill it with water.
Put your hand in up to the wrist.
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is the measure of how you’ll be missed.
You may splash all you like as you enter,
You may stir up the waters galore,
But stop, and you’ll find in a minute
It looks just the same as before.
The moral of this quaint example
Is to do just the best that you can.
Be proud of yourself, but remember,
There is no indispensible man.
—Anonymous
o.O that is humbling. all the times i feel like that at work, john always has to remind me that the world of CISP will go on without me. 😛
..and completely off topic..how did you get into geneology? how much would you say you spend on it?
i’m curious to know waaay back. i need to ask my grandfather what his parents’ names were and what their parents’ names were as far back as he can remember – he’s my oldest living relative, methinks. Wish i’d asked my aunt ginny while she was still alive :/