Yesterday, Kim and I went to the funeral of a 92 year old woman. She’d lived a long and rich life. I only knew her late in life. Her first husband had died nearly thirty years before her and she’d remarried in her seventies and continued to be active, alive, and involved.

It’s one of those examples that makes us relax a bit. We look at her and realize that we have plenty of time to accomplish things. We look at her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and time stretches out.

But Friday there was a reminder that you don’t. Friday, in a church just a few miles from yesterday’s funeral there was a funeral for a fifteen year old child. She died suddenly at school earlier in the week.

The pairing of the two was jarring. It was a reminder not to wait. That we don’t have endless time to get going.

The 92 year old woman didn’t wait. She was active and involved from the start. The stories that were told included her learning English as a second language in kindergarten and becoming the family’s translator at school meetings for her siblings.

She was one of those women who was active all of her life. She was a woman who was truly ahead of her time–a working mother when mother’s didn’t work. A woman businessman out-bidding male competitors when women weren’t in business.

Two funerals with two different kinds of sadness. Two funerals together with one message.

Don’t wait.

This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.