We walk through cemeteries all the time and never fully grasp the gravestones we see. How long did the person live and what did they see in their lifetime. Case in point:
Mike Smith. He was born on January 6, 1871 and he died on December 22, 1976. At first we see that he died three days before Christmas. That's too bad. But look again and we see that Mike Smith lived 105 years and died less than a month before his 106th birthday. What did this guy see in his long, long lifetime? Let's find out...
~ Mike was 10-years old when the Earps and Clantons shot it out at the OK Corral in 1881.
~ Mike was 26-years old when the automobile was released to the public in 1897.
~ In 1898 he was 27 and may have served in the Spanish-American War.
~ He was 32 - years old when the Wright Brothers flew their plane at Kitty Hawk in 1903.
~ He was 37-years old when the first motion picture was shown in theaters in 1908.
~ Mike was 41 when the Titanic sank in 1912.
~ He was 46 when World War I began for America in 1917.
~ He was 58-years old when the stock market crashed in 1929.
~ When World War II began in 1941, Mike was past the age to serve at 70 years old.
He was 82 when Rock & Roll started in 1953.
~ When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Mike was 92.
~ He was 98 when we landed men on the moon in 1969.
~ He lived another 7-years before he finally passed away.
Mike lived through the last years of the old American West. He had lived through the years of the Chicago gangster period. He had also seen the entire war years of both Korea and Vietnam. Besides the murder of John Kennedy, Mike had seen first hand, the assassinations of president William McKinley, James A. Garfield, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. All total, Mike lived through the administrations of 21-presidents beginning with Ulysses S. Grant and ending with Gerald Ford.
To put it all in context, Mike was born only six years after the end of the Civil War. But he managed to see the entire war in Vietnam.
So, the next time you see a gravestone marked, 1905 - 1980, remember that the dash mark between the birth year and the death year represents the life of the person buried there. That dash is their entire life span. What did that dash contain? And, how long should that dash be? Just something to think about as we look at Mike Smith's 105-years on earth.