REFLECTIONS

Making Sense of Life

“And the class of ’57 had their dreams.” At least I know Q did. I know from the deep conversations that shared our lives. While most of our high school friends attended Saturday night movies, engaged in card games, or found mischief to satisfy an itch for excitement, we challenged each other’s imaginations to make sense of life. Well into the night, we considered occupational choices, social issues, and even economic philosophies neither of us really understood. And we talked about God. We wondered how a being could exist with no beginning nor end.

Q Richards had his dreams. Memories of them relived in my mind as a pastor recalled his life to the family and friends gathered to honor him. Q dreamed to carry on his family’s ranching legacy and to pass it to the next generation. Regi is the picture of the wife in the dreams he described to me. And when he spoke of family closely bound by love it told me of the warmth in his heart often masked by the intensity of his stare and the brevity of his words.

No doubt those conversations led us to identify and hold dear the values that guided our lives. They formed the beliefs for the decisions we made and established principles we did not violate. And those conversations about God? They strengthened the faith to seek God’s direction when standing at life’s many crossroads.

Although we never talked deeply again after our high school years, the understanding and respect for each other never weakened. Q was my friend and I was his. People need friends to help in the struggles to make sense of life—worldly things, business complexities, matters of relationship, and the mysteries of God. Q was such a friend to me, and I hope at least in some small way I was to him. But this I know for sure. Q Richards is a part of the fabric of my being. Those deep conversations stimulated ideas, formed beliefs, and established standards for living that haven’t changed. He may have never realized how much those conversations helped me in making sense of life.

I suspect it was a dream that never entered his mind.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

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