The Great Way
by Odin Roark

Stuff you bought
is nothing compared to what you built;
never that which you came by,
but that which you constructed and gave.

Lest we forget…

To learn is but a step in the right direction;
What did you do to teach?

Success is limited,
but significance is without boundary.

Of infinite importance
is what your integrity,
tenderness and sacrifice became.

To have loved others with clarity and care
is the measurement of honest love,
the kind that makes a lasting influence on their daily tasks.

Did you empower or encourage others?
Was your example worthy of emulation?

For…

The fallacy is not the number of people you knew,
but the number feeling a painful loss
of the being that could only leave behind
the ashes of his or her mortality,
yet, a being that meant something.

What will matter is not your brilliance, fame or glory,
but your essential quality.

It’s not about death’s memory lost,
but those remembrances that live
within the hearts of those who felt your love.

Perhaps the question of what will matter
is how long you will be remembered
by whom and for what.

One’s life-long journey
is not a happenstance,
or that which came about through accident.

This venture called life,
is not a matter of incident,
nor a matter of chance,
it is remembering: the great way is not difficult
for those who have no preference.