Someone Goes First. Someone Goes Last. And Someone Leaves Before Anyone Is Ready

A Reflection on Family, Friendship, Work, and the Urgency We Often Forget

Every family carries a truth we rarely say aloud. One sibling will see all the funerals. One will see none. And one will leave before anyone is ready.

It’s a heavy thought until you realize how universally it applies. The same pattern shows up among friends, coworkers, committees, leadership teams, and even the groups we drift through in daily life. In every circle, someone will take the first step into the next chapter, someone will outlive the rest, and someone will go earlier than anyone imagined.

I used to teach seventh-grade health classes, and every year I gave them a tour of my funeral home. Middle schoolers live with a sense of invincibility; they believe life will stretch on endlessly. So I’d ask them to pause, look around the room, and recognize a truth none of them wanted to hear:

“One of you will be the first to die. And one of you will be the last.”

Their eyes would widen, not in fear, but in the realization that life isn’t theoretical. It’s finite. It moves. And none of us gets to set the timetable.

That moment was my attempt to give them a little eschatological urgency, not morbid curiosity, but awareness. Awareness that time is not guaranteed. Awareness that their choices matter. Awareness that the people sitting beside them were not casual background characters but central to the story of their lives.

The truth is, adults aren’t much different. We move through our days as if time owes us more of itself. But it doesn’t.

Forever becomes years. Years become moments. Moments slip past quietly, whether we pay attention or not.

My years in funeral service taught me this again and again. Families arrived with unfinished conversations, unsaid apologies, unspoken gratitude, and sometimes a deep sense of peace, having given one another their best while there was still time. Age didn’t matter.

Circumstances didn’t matter. What mattered was whether they had lived aware of the gift of one another.

That awareness invites us to live differently.

Slow down. Look at the people you cross paths with every day. Choose presence over hurry. Offer kindness where irritation might feel easier. Say the words that would bless someone now instead of wishing later that you had.

Whether it’s your family, your workplace, your circle of friends, or the community you serve, the pattern is always the same: someone goes first. Someone goes last. And someone leaves before anyone is ready.

If we take that truth seriously, even for a moment, we start to see our days differently. We start to treat people differently. We start to understand that the real work of life isn’t productivity; it’s relationships.

Leadership, in its most valid form, is found right here. In the way we listen. In the way we show up. In the way we honor the people who share our story, even for a season.

So pause today. Look around your own circle the way those seventh graders once did. Recognize the sacredness of the people standing beside you. Say the thing you’ve been planning to say. Give the forgiveness you’ve been holding back. Celebrate the ordinary moments that will one day mean everything.

Because one day, one of you will be the last one standing. And when that day comes, you’ll know just how much this all mattered.