Page 81 - Dash Inspirations by Linda Ellis

The Sole Soul
Born and raised in a small southern town, an old man spent most of his life worrying about making, investing, and counting his money. His only acquaintances—purposely—were business partners or fellow investors, and the only family members who came to see him did so in order to someday secure a prominent place in his will.
At eighty-two years of age, he passed away, alone in his chair. He was positioned in that chair four or five days, per the coroner’s reports, before he was discovered. The only reason he was found then was because of a neighbor’s unleashed dogs continuously barking outside his front door.
He lived his life building barriers. He wore an invisible armor between him and the world. If a person did not fill a financial purpose or offer the promise of profit, he or she was of no use to him. His heart was cold. He had never allowed himself to experience the thrill of falling in love, the warmth of holding an infant in his arms, or the joys of life found outside the realm of diversified portfolios and profit and loss statements.
He had built walls that protected his soul, his home, and his heart from anyone who might get close enough to cause him pain. He believed this to be a guaranteed way to prevent hurt and, by doing so, denied himself love, companionship, and friendship. He knew any relationships of the heart involved exposure, vulnerability, and risk, and the only risks he vowed he would ever take were in the stock market. He would risk investing his fortune, but never chance his heart.
When the old man learned he was terminally ill, he paid a visit to his attorney to get his affairs into order. As a practical matter, he took a drive to the local cemetery to select and purchase a grave site. He walked the farthest distance south from the last purchased grave in a particular row, then turned and walked fifty yards facing east. It was the very last site in which the cemetery was permitted to bury. There, he had convinced himself, was the perfect location for his remains to spend eternity.
It was a dark, rainy day when he was placed into the ground. No one was there with a kind word to say. No mournful tears fell upon his casket before he was lowered into his eternal resting place. The temporary tents the cemetery personnel had constructed shielded no mourners in black suits and black dresses from the rain that fell. No words of prayer were
Dash Inspirations by Linda Ellis www.LindaEllis.life
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