The Biggest Elephant of Them All

Each year at this time people talk about goals. Lose weight, get organized, read more, work less. Few dare to name what hums underneath all resolutions:

Time is limited.
We’re not here forever.

It took me 65 years to feel that truth in my bones. For most of my life, death was present but distant, like a shadow at the far end of the room. I knew it was there. I’d lost people I loved: my sister when we were teens, my mother at 62, my brother in his 30s, grandparents, in-laws, my father. Grief was real. But somehow death still felt like something that happened to other people.

I’m now an AARP member and starting Medicare—I’m no longer one of the young ones!!
I see men just ahead of me, stooped, shuffling, fading.
I can almost see my own outline among them.

There it is — the elephant I can’t unsee.

And suddenly I’m wondering:

What happens when I’m gone?
Having presided as a pastor for more than 100 funerals I know one thing that will happen. Will people grieve for a while, then return to normal life as if I’d never been here.
What will last?
Will anything?

Years ago I spent thirty days crossing the ocean on a cargo ship from Charleston to Sydney. Russian officers. Indonesian crew. Only one other fluent English speaker. A passenger, a writer, published and seasoned. What luck, I thought. I was pounding out pages of my first book; he was working on another of his. I had help.

We talked for hours. About faith, family, meaning, writing.
He was an atheist. Gentle, curious, thoughtful.

One night, somewhere between darkness and more darkness, we talked about death.

He said when he died he knew what would happen. He would return to nothing and was perfectly at peace with that.
Cool with it, even, he said.

I couldn’t fathom that. Still can’t.

Something in me cries out: There has to be more!
More than decay. More than disappearance.
More than a brief spark in a cosmic night.

He thought wanting to continue was selfish, a refusal to accept reality.
But to me the opposite felt true: To be content with nothingness seemed like a betrayal of the Love that first breathed us into life.

I’m not here to argue theology tonight. I just want to look honestly at this elephant the way my book keeps urging me to:

Death is the one elephant we can’t fix, deny, or negotiate with.

But we can stop pretending it isn’t standing beside us. Maybe naming it is its own kind of faith. Because once we face our finitude, every moment gleams differently:

• A simple meal tastes like grace.
• A hug costs nothing but means everything.
• A sunset feels extravagant.
• Turning 65 isn’t just aging—it’s awakening.

Mortality makes life sweeter, not smaller.

Maybe this is why Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb. Not because death won, but because love does.
Because presence is stronger than absence.

And maybe, just maybe, the longing in us that refuses to accept annihilation is not denial…
but echo.
A homing signal.
A memory of where we came from and where we’re going.

“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
— Psalm 90:12

God of beginnings and endings,
teach us to count our days not with dread
but with gratitude.
When fear whispers that we are fading,
whisper back that love is never wasted.
Help us live like people who know time is precious,
and die like people who trust we are held beyond it.
Amen.

This year, I hope to live more awake, to love more quickly, forgive without keeping score, waste fewer sunsets, hold people longer when they hug me. I want to risk vulnerability over safety, truth over pretending. If these are my final chapters (and one day they will be), I want them written in love, not fear.

The Elephant Chronicles are meditations based on my upcoming book “The Lie that Kills Us: We All Have Elephants. It explores the elephants we avoid: denial, addiction, trauma, death, and grace.

If you’d like me to let you know when it’s released, send a note to: pastored@addictionandfaith.com

I’d be honored to keep you in the loop.

The book is now available: Amazon

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