Life is Precious
Life. It’s something that if you are reading this right now you are blessed to have. It is something that by the end of this page you might not be lucky enough to still have.
Today my friends and I lost someone near and dear to our hearts. No matter how many moments you shared with this individual not one of them was a waste. This human being never let a second go by where a smile was not pasted across his jolly face. The first connotation that comes to mind when this person is brought up is “jolly”. There is no better word for him. His name was Connor “Bubba” Hamilton; he passed suddenly at the age of 19.
It hurts, and it does not make sense. When you have a mind like mine it drives you to the edge of sanity and then grovels and begs you to jump. While pacing around outside and embracing friends that came by holding each other and saying the words “I love you” and really meaning it, I finally cracked. I asked one of my friends who I look up to as wise and insightful I said, “I just do not get it. It makes no sense. How could anyone who claims to be just and right ever let something so horrible happen to this kind of individual? After a few moments of silence all Travis said was, “Life is precious.” That is all he had to say and all that needed to be said, because in these situations nothing else makes sense.
In these situations we want to get mad and hate and blame someone or something, but we can’t. We can do nothing more than be there for the ones we care about and who care about us. There is a lot of bullshit out there, a lot of it. Situations like these make someone like me step back and open my eyes as wide as possible to see it all. What I see is that everything in life is tangible except for three things.
The first is time. Whether we are here or not time moves on. We all wear watches and check our phones for the time but we never think about the significance of that second that just ticked by. That single moment in time is gone forever, lost in a pile of the past that no one, no matter how powerful, can ever bring back. After each tick of the watch strapped around my left wrist it hits me. Someone is feeling the exact same way I am about a soul I have never met, heard of or seen.
The one thing in life that has never ever let me down is music, the second intangible (self-expression). It has always been there for me as an escape and an emotional anchor; yet right now, I cannot even find the slightest joy in even the most uplifting of songs. There is no word in the English dictionary that can fully encompass the wide range of emotions that humans experience during these moments. The only one that even comes close is “surreal” because it is moments like these that everything is so real that nothing else seems to be. I was not as close Bubba as others were; yet I have been sitting here trying to bring a smile to my face and nothing under the sun can force my facial muscles to come remotely close.
The third intangible is our relationships with the people around us. Whether it’s friends or family, they are who will be there for you when the going gets tough and they are who you always need to be there for. This third intangible is the most important.
At times like this my mind’s eye is not one hundred percent clear since the two blue ones that stare at this screen are working as a damn to hold back the river of emotion flowing behind them now I see it so clearly. All that matters in this life is our relationships. Share moments, make memories and cherish both. It is all we can do.
There are so many little things that we waste energy on each day that claim time we can spend with others. Tick, tick, tick. There goes three more seconds that are now in the pile of the past never to be seen again. So next time you see a friend, a family member or even someone you hate, cherish that interaction. Cherish the simple fact that you are both so blessed to be breathing at that moment, that each of you is living life. It’s an opportunity. One of my life mottos is “Never miss the opportunity for an adventure” and I try to live that out every day and in every way. However, in times like these I see that life itself is an adventure, and just being able to live it is an opportunity. An opportunity that some people who had it when I started writing this piece do not anymore; they are gone.
With all the sorrow, sadness and confusion that comes with these situations is the faintest light one could possibly imagine. That light is being reminded of and remembering one thing: Life is Precious. “Life is precious” it is cliché, but it’s powerful, it’s brutally honest and it’s all we have. So, don’t let it go to waste.
Make a difference and make a memory. Thank you for sharing some of those ticks on your watch with me. I hope they did not go to waste.
R.I.P. Connor “Bubba” Hamilton
September 5, 1994- February 18, 2014
Cameron Colan 
So true.
Wow. Thank you for such a lovely piece. Your words have made the grief a little easier to bear! Love, Julie Hamilton
Bubba’s Mom