It’s a sad and sobering fact that as I get older, attending funerals of dear friends and relatives become an ever more frequent part of my life.

I spent a recent birthday in Detroit at the funeral of my Uncle Marvin, a gentle, generous, modest man described by all as a mensch – a person of extraordinary character.

It’s been said that “If you want to know how to live your life, think about what you want people to say about you after you die – and live backward.” Uncle Marvin seemed to do that, and he would have been pleased by the things people said about him.

Although it’s heartwarming to hear words of tribute for a life well lived, I confess I feel a profound sense of loss and foreboding when I’m forced to face the fact that people I care about have left and will never come back.

In one of my poems, I acknowledge that “Some day it will all come to an end; there will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days.” I can’t get my mind around the idea that there will be a day when my life will not be measured by moments but by memories. And it chills me to contemplate not being able to caress, counsel, or comfort my wife and children. Far worse is any thought of the grief they may suffer when I leave them.

Yet I know I must accept what I cannot change. Although it doesn’t feel like enough, I find some consolation knowing I’m striving daily to live my life as fully as I can and will not squander any opportunity to express my love and appreciate the love I’m lucky enough to receive.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

* On the topic of death and tributes, how can one do better than Shakespeare’s Juliet who expressed her adoration of Romeo thusly:

Come, gentle night,
Come, loving, black-browed night.
Give me my Romeo,
And when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.