It is amazing how our entire perspective can be changed in a moment sometimes.

This morning started out with a discovery that really got me excited in an incredibly self-centered petty sort of way. I saw that I’ve finally risen to the top of the Chris Cree’s on the internet.

Call me the King of Chris Cree’s. Of all the Chris Cree’s out there I come up first.

At least according to Yahoo and Google. For some inexplicable reason MSN Live search still thinks the highest I rate is the third spot. Good thing for me no one really uses them for search, eh?

It was an ego stroke that left me feeling pretty good. I let out a Homeresque “Whoo-Hoo!” and went about my day, all happy like. Because, after all, it’s all about me, isn’t it.

The Shift

Then about mid morning the reality of life caught up with me and completely refocused my attention back to those things that are important by completely upending my perspective.

I just came back into the office after enjoying a few moments of absolutely perfect sunny 70 degree weather while taking care of some business out at the port when I was told of the phone call.

Tina, our secretary at the job I go to every day died during the night.

She had been sick for a while. When Gorgeous and I were on vacation over New Years she had gone into ICU at the hospital for a bit. She hadn’t been back to work since.

She was home by the time we got back in town and the reports were that she was having good days and some rough days was was steadily improving. Apparently the doctors were a bit puzzled, said she had some sort of lung infection that wasn’t responding to treatment.

They said it wasn’t cancer, but it sure treated her like cancer. She was steadily loosing what little weight she had to begin with. Then this past Friday they said she’d gone back into ICU, she was having trouble breathing again.

I was shocked to find out that Tina was only about 3 years older than me. I’d worked with her for years and assumed she was 10+ years older than that. I know that part of her problem was that she made some unhealthy choices, smoking heavily and a diet that was mostly snack foods.

Even so it doesn’t feel right to see a person like that leave this world so early. How will her young daughter understand it? What other changes are in store for her husband?

The part that makes me angry is that I failed her as a friend. Didn’t once visit her in the hospital. I let the petty busyness of life, things like the concern for Google ranking, distract me from an important thing.

“Oh, there’ll be time for that. Later.”

In my distraction I blew right through later into Too Late.

The Important Things

When you get right down to it, the only things in this world that really matter are the relationships with other people that we have. Good, bad or indifferent.

We can choose to be a friend. Or we can let ourselves get distracted with all the busyness and skip over the important parts.

Just like Tina choosing her diet or smoking habits, the choice of how we relate to people – whether we prioritize them above the “stuff” we think is so important – is completely up to us.

Choose more wisely than I have over the last few months.

But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ — Luke 12:20