(Please click to play if you wish- an especially fitting song to accompany today’s blog- just minimize and it’ll play in the background as you read- 06 Hallelujah)- Today’s post is derived from two especially meaningful occasions, one to me personally, and the other which represents not only me, but just about everyone else as well.  I write this with significantly mixed emotions, as it marks the first full year of the blog/book 100 To One.  When I started this whole thing last November, I said to my wife, “Well, I don’t know what all will come from it, but I’m going to give it a year, and just see what happens.”

Among other things, it has been a truly instructive experience, and hard to believe an entire year of weekly installments has gone by!  While the overall subject of 100 To One is about dating and relationships, there are a few specific postings that stand out for me personally.  If there were one piece that I’d most want to represent me as a person (as well as my work), it would be the Martin Luther King Day 2011 post entitled “The Meaning of Life.”

This brings us then full circle to today.  The main topic of the previous “Meaning of Life” was a story of how people respond to an untimely loss of a loved one, and how unavoidably universal that topic is for us all.  Of course, no one gets to choose when and where they may be reminded of such realities.  This past weekend, my wife and I attended a funeral related gathering for a truly loved and admired gentleman who died far too soon, before the age of fifty.

For all those in attendance- immediate and extended family, friends, colleagues- it was the realest of reminders of what we all understand yet certainly prefer not to think about- that none of us ever really knows what tomorrow brings.  We naturally have a tendency to overlook those close to us as we struggle with our everyday busy lives.  And yet, we can often find ourselves reflecting in times of loss how much we do value our loves ones, how important they are to us.

I would like to invite you to read a more thorough exploration of this deeply human topic in the aforementioned Martin Luther King posting; I truly welcome your feedback.  As stated at the start of today’s post, it marks the first full year to the day of the blog/book 100 To One.  For now, this first “chapter” is complete, and will not presently continue on a regular basis.  Many thanks for reading, and please stay tuned in the near future!