Life's insignificant moments not always so
- col-dave-mast
- April 19, 2024
- 455
Orenthal James Simpson has passed away.
The man more well known as O.J. Simpson, nicknamed “The Juice,” was an All-American football player at the University of Southern California, where he became a Heisman Trophy winner.
He was a National Football Hall of Fame running back with the Buffalo Bills.
Simpson would later become an actor, known for roles in movies like “The Naked Gun,” “Towering Inferno” and “Capricorn One.”
He was accused of a heinous murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, a crime of which he was acquitted, and his trial was on display for the world to see and to judge, including a well-known slow-motion police chase in the infamous white Ford Bronco.
To this day, people remain adamant of both his guilt and innocence in the brutal stabbing deaths.
Good or bad, O.J. Simpson left his mark on society, but this column isn’t about Simpson.
Instead, it is about Goldman and the frailty of life.
On June 12, 1994, Brown, her children and her family attended her daughter Sydney’s school dance recital. Afterward, they all went out to eat at Mezzaluna, a neighborhood restaurant, then to Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream.
That evening her mother called her around 9:40 p.m., notifying Nicole she had left her eyeglasses at the restaurant.
That one seemingly insignificant action inadvertently led to Goldman’s death.
Brown called her friend Goldman, who was a waiter at the restaurant, and he said he would drop the eyeglasses off after work after 10 p.m.
One hour later Goldman was dead.
One simple act of forgetting eyeglasses at a local restaurant forever changed Ron Goldman’s life.
If Brown’s mother hadn’t forgotten those glasses, Goldman wouldn’t have been at the Brown residence that night.
His life, more than likely, would have gone on.
Instead, it was over.
The thing is it isn’t just forgotten eyeglasses.
That singular moment could have been anything.
An automobile accident could come down to passing a car or even making it through an intersection rather than having to stop at the red light 20 minutes earlier than when a fatal crash occurred. Had that action not been taken, the drivers of both vehicles wouldn’t have met at that very point in time.
Someone gets hit at an intersection. If they hadn’t stopped to tie their shoe or pick up a penny, they might have crossed safely just moments earlier.
Each day is filled with moments in time that could alter our outcome. We will never know for sure because we don’t know, nor can we ever determine what simple actions may or may not impact our lives in the most drastic of ways.
Ron Goldman didn’t know when he volunteered to take those glasses to Brown.
James 4:14 reads, “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
That poignant statement ushers in one simple question: If life is so fleeting, what do you want to do with your life?
Many people today seem so set on being divisive, sewing hate, being selfish, choosing to revel in the negative rather than embracing the positive.
Perhaps it is best to heed the wisdom of Mother Teresa, who said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
Ah yes, let us begin … begin to understand one another, to forgive, to relish life’s simple pleasures, to bask in a morning’s golden sunrise or appreciate an evening’s stunning sunset.
Let us begin to embrace the things that make us the same and not dwell on the differences that divide us.
Let us begin to live with purpose, with a sense of selflessness, thinking of others, serving the needs of them before thinking of ourselves.
Let us cherish the silly moments with grandchildren and rejoice with meaningful moments with grandparents.
Let us begin to seek to help each other live life to the fullest.
Let us begin to share kind words instead of hate, offer a hand in love instead of a slap in the face and respect others because we don’t know when that one moment might fleetingly come our way and, like a whisper, send us to the next life. Life is too valuable to spend it swimming in a pool of despair and regret.
An unknown author once stated, “In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never know when you may not have that chance again.”
That is truly deep and meaningful. It makes one appreciate what one has.
Ron Goldman had hopes and dreams. He had friends and family. He had a future that was erased.
He probably would have loved to go back in time, just once before that brutal night, and tell those he loved that he loved them.
The difference between life and death can come in a seemingly innocent moment, like leaving behind one’s glasses.
The majority of us won’t ever know what that moment might be or when it will come. All we can do is live passionately, love unendingly and embrace each day as though it was our last.