The Dusenbury Effect- It has been many years since I last saw or spoke with Jeff Dusenbury. We were friendly; we shared common friends; we were Class of ’81. But I honestly could not tell you the last time we spoke. Maybe he was behind me at graduation, or I saw him at a reunion event. Based on recent articles, Facebook postings and recent person to person reflections, it seems to me Jeff was not one to take much idle time. He was a passionate bicyclist, and he died doing something he loved. Most probably, work is simply what he did in between living. We are all guilty from time to time of getting into a rut, and repeating the same day over and over again, without adding any variety. I refer to this as “flat line living”. (Visualize this) - If you picture life as a line chart, like an EKG monitor, plotting unique dots based on your daily activities, with work being the base line, your lifeline is pretty much flat if you don’t get out and do something beyond work and home. From what I gather, Jeff’s lifeline looked like heartbeat, not at all a flat line. The point is I suspect if we plotted each of Jeff’s unique daily life “dots”, you would see a pretty vibrant heartbeat. The even more important point is, if you grab the first dot and the last dot, and stretch it out, Jeff’s lifeline would be very long. This tells me that even though in the context of life expectancy, he is gone way too soon, he did live a long, content rich life in the time we got to share with him. Maybe we can all take a page from Jeff’s playbook. In Jeff’s spirit, when you run into an old friend/acquaintance, be sure to share your own “Dusenbury Dots”. I bet he would love the shout out. For those of you that got to share life with him, his passing is sad, and you will miss him deeply. I suspect he would encourage you to pick yourself up and start adding some dots of your own so you can catch up with him before your time is up. When it is, be prepared when you get to the other side. Do not expect Jeff to be resting in peace, but rather biking on the trails of a fantastically eternal road/trail system. God bless you Jeff, and thanks for the inspiration. I am going out to get some pedals for my idle road bike now. The two dots I just made are tears on my keyboard. The next two will be the two ends of my smile on my smiley face after I go take a bike ride in honor of my classmate and friend. Let’s all go out make some “Dusenbury Dots” Ed Dodd #dusenburydots
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 21:28:58 +0000