I love funerals.

I hate funerals.
I know, that comes as a contradiction to the title of this post, but allow me to explain myself.
I attended the funeral of a friend I grew up with's dad today. As I sat there among the mourning and tears, I thought to myself how I hated funerals. How I hate the sorrow, how I hate the goodbyes, how I hate the finality of it all. How I hate seeing people grieve with such loss.
For some reason, this funeral really made me sit back and see that everyone on this earth will die one day.
All of us sitting in that room will have a funeral and have people sitting in a room that will also one day sit in a room of their funerals...
...unless, of course, we're caught up in some mass extermination or something... sadly, in this day and age, I can't rule it out.
But, each of us mean something to people. Each of our deaths will count as a loss to someone. Each will cause mourning. Each will constitute a pain felt deep down in someone's heart and soul. So what am I living for? How am I using my time? How am I making the most of the moments I have left?
Funerals are becoming sadly more common recently, and I am starkly aware of the fact that tomorrow isn't promised, nor do we know what it holds for everyone in our lives. Everything can change in a  moment.
As such, every moment is so valuable, so important. We can't waste a single one. Those are what we will leave behind, those are what our loved ones will have to cling to. These moments and how we use them become the memories that cause us to live on or be forgotten after our deaths.
Hearing my friend speak so fondly of her father and how he made the most of every moment, how he took the time to appreciate each one he was given, made me sit back and really reevaluate how I live mine. What I see as important, what I hold as valuable.
See, I love funerals, because it's from these that I tend to learn the most valuable lessons in life. It's sad that it comes to this, but I don't want to lose a single opportunity to learn and be better. That's what this life is about; it's about the legacy we leave and what our days say to those we leave behind. What wisdom can we leave to those we say goodbye to? That's what we should be concerned about.
The next thought funerals always captivate me with is how we're all here, crying and sad, and how in  most of these situations, the person is already in heaven, caught up in eternal glory. They were there, in that beautiful place the moment their soul left here. They're having the time of their lives. And to think of the time when we get to join them, oh how wonderful that time will be! To hold them in our arms again. To look into their eyes... I look forward to it.
When I was little, I used to be a little concerned about having anyone there to meet me when I got there. Little did I know that in a few short years, I would have more than I ever expected... To think of getting to see them all again, my heart fills with such love.

I hope these make sense. I hope you sit back and reevaluate how you live your life. Please, don't waste a moment...
Because that's what life is all about; how you handled the moments.
Make the most of it.