An Unrecorded Appointment

As my custom was I checked my diary

I couldn’t bear to miss an appointment

So far so good it seemed to me,

To miss an appointment I clearly resent.

I went through it with a fine-tooth-comb

And itemized the entries in my mind,

No way I could have missed an entry there

So from that I mentally resigned.

I turned to attend to a daily task

When the diary called to me again,

What had I forgotten I began to wonder?

What was it I had failed to retain?

Have you ever had a nagging thought

Regarding something you were to do

But no matter how hard you tried to focus

That thing just won’t come into view?

If you have had such an experience

You would know what I went through

So like you would, I took up the diary

Hoping something there would provide a clue.

I searched through the daily entries

And then turned to those for the week,

Next I tackled the monthly appointments

And then the process I was forced to repeat.

At the end of it all I was none the wiser

But there still was this nagging thought

That I had forgotten something important

And this left me quite distraught.

That daily task I had told you about

Was not so important anymore,

Whatever it was I couldn’t remember

In my mental space had come to the fore.

I went to the sofa and just sat there

Staring at the ceiling and all about

Hoping that something within my scope

Would help me to sort this matter out.

Appointments were entered immediately,

That is, as soon as I was informed

And would be checked every morning

For me this was the daily norm.

This had been my practice for many a year

And the same had served me well

But then I wondered what was it I had missed

And though hard I tried I couldn’t tell.

I reached for the remote to turn the radio on

Just as a matter of routine

For it was that time at which I tuned in

To the news around the local scene.

After the news were some household tips

Then next came the sobering obits

When I heard a name exactly like mine

And sincerely thought it was a slip.

Here I was listening to my own obit

When clearly I was not even dead,

You see the name was mine but not the obit

So that quickly cleared my head.

But it had cleared up another matter too

The matter of the unrecorded event

For in my diary there was no such entry

Of the appointment that most people resent.

I challenge you to check your diary

For that appointment’s date and time,

The most you would find is the space

But definitely no such entry of its kind.

For none of us knows the day or hour

When our sojourn on earth will end,

That knowledge is God’s and God’s alone

But it could be around the next bend.

One day I won’t be reading my obit

Or hearing it on the radio for that matter,

It won’t have been recorded in my diary

And I won’t be here for the chatter.

I would have kept that appointment

Though not recorded in my diary,

Absent from this life is to be present with Lord

Is the believer’s promise in eternity.

Tomorrow, God’s willing I’ll check my diary

Because as you now know that’s the norm,

However, if that’s my unrecorded appointment

Then you will be subsequently informed.

Stewart Russell (2017)