Do you remember a few years back when a Russian submarine, Kursk, had a series of explosions and
sank? One hundred and eighteen crewmen
died in those explosions. Twenty-three
of the crew survived in an isolated chamber for several hours after the
explosion. The world, including the
United States, volunteered to send help.
One of the survivors was 27-year-old Lieutenant Captain, Dimitry
Kolesnikov, and he wrote to his wife while he waited to die. Two words from that note were displayed in a
black frame next to his coffin at his funeral service. He wrote, “Mustn’t
despair.” Must not despair.
During the 9/11 attacks, one plane that was diverted from
its intended target by brave passengers eventually crashed in a Pennsylvania
field. A side story revealed that many
of those on board made last minute phone calls to loved ones. Remember?
When Jane and I visited Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp
outside of Munich, one of the stories told and illustrated by framed “notes”
was of people who had been watching the atrocities go on and felt themselves
nearing starvation. They took their last
breaths to write notes and store them in crevasses in the wall of the bunkhouses. They hoped somebody besides the Nazis would
read the notes and know their story.
In that final moment, when the scaffolding of life gets
stripped away, all the stupid toys we spend our lives chasing—success,
reputation, security, wealth, comfort, ease—mean nothing. You are left with what you really believe,
what you really built your life on. Some
of us spend our lives pretending that day will never come, but that final
moment will come. If it were here for
you right now, what would you write?
What’s the message you want to leave behind? What’s your story?
Bill Crofton
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