Regina Holt has the world by the tail. She lives by the motto, “Never let the tyranny of the urgent determine the course of your life.” She can cut through the noise of daily work and focus on what matters. She has elevated several companies that have utilized her skills, and at the same time, she has elevated herself. However, at this moment, all her skills are called into question at the sight of the dead body lying in front of her.
At the start of her career, she heard someone say, “Don’t let your day job keep you from accomplishing what is important.” She took this philosophy to heart, and it paid off. Earlier today, she had been explaining it to a corporate board. She told them, “We often go to work each day with countless urgent tasks pulling us here and then there. Many of these tasks feel important, but very few of them will help you fulfill your company goals. Sometimes, we even use these daily activities as an excuse to avoid working on more significant issues because the more substantial work is difficult. Then, we chalk our lack of progress up to being too busy.”
She walked out of the board meeting feeling satisfied because she had set a goal of serving as a consultant for ten Fortune 500 companies before she took her business to the next level. This company was her tenth. As planned, her next step was to launch a curriculum to a broader audience based on all she had learned. She was growing in expertise, recognition, and income, and she would not stop there. That is when she entered the women’s restroom and had her confidence shattered.
As she stepped into the ladies room, something was not right. The air seemed stifled. Then she saw it—the body of a woman about her age was lying motionless on the cold tile floor; she looked as if she was staring at something beyond the ceiling. Regina reached out to check on her, but the body had already begun to grow cold. She checked for a pulse and felt nothing. What shocked Regina the most was the dead woman’s open eyes and tortured face. It was as if the woman had gained a glimpse of eternity, which had terrified her. Regina immediately ran out to call for help.
It wasn’t long before the paramedics arrived, but what could they do? They had no equipment that could bring the dead back to life. Regina thought about the tyranny of the urgent in light of a paramedic’s work and didn’t know what to do with it. This call was undoubtedly an emergency, but nothing they did would make any difference for the dead lady.
The paramedics and a police officer interviewed Regina. Some of the questions were uncomfortable because they explored whether or not Regina had anything to do with the woman’s death. But they ruled out any suspicious activity relatively quickly. As she was leaving, the police officer said, “Thank you for your time, Ms. Holt, and I am sorry you had to experience this today. Please know the remains have been brought to the coroner’s office for an autopsy. We assume it was a heart issue based on her medical history.” “Remains,” the word hung in the air, hollow and cold. Not a woman. Not a person—just remains.
That night, she lay in bed in her plush New York apartment, and she could not get the image of the dead woman looking heavenward out of her mind. She thought, “‘Remains’ is such an interesting word. It implies that the woman has gone somewhere else and left her body behind.” Regina felt a pang within her chest. It was as if an ancient truth was written on her heart—as if eternity itself was inscribed there. It pricked her soul with surgical precision, saying, “This life is not all there is.”
At this moment, she realized that all her talk about the tyranny of the urgent had been hypocritical because all her plans, goals, and aspirations were focused on the here and now. She had spent her life bending it to her will. But eternity? She had never accounted for that. If eternity were in front of her, she would need to ensure the immediacy of this temporal world did not keep her from preparing for it. She remembered hearing a preacher once say something like, “You can gain this whole world and reach all of your goals, but if you lose your soul, you have nothing.”
She thought, “Everything I have invested into in my life will one day be “remains,” just like my body, but what about what doesn’t remain? What about what goes on? I cannot let the urgency of this short life keep me from focusing on what is ultimately important.” Sleep eluded her. As she looked out the rain-streaked window, her eyes seemed to look beyond it—beyond time itself. She thought, “What will be the last thing we see? The remains of life are one thing, but what about the life that remains?”
-D. Eaton
Other Short Stories
The Lifted Veil
The Broken Church Light
In the Shadows of Grief
Stay Awake
The Fight of Faith 