When All is Said and Done

Lately, people have been asking me what was my favorite part of my trip to England. I have a hard time answering that, because I had favorite aspects of everything we did! My snarky response is: "England. My favorite part was England. Just all of it." But if you were to ask me what the most impactful thing was, I would say Westminster Abbey. So far, there hasn't been a day that has gone by since I returned when I have not thought about that remarkable place. 

I mean, first of all, it was visually stunning, more so than I could have imagined. The architecture was breathtaking, the colors and light were inspiring, and the height of the vaulted ceiling just made me want to look up and up and up... The artistry of the vivid stained glass, icons, furniture, and chandeliers... and then the detailed and preserved sculptures and sepulchers and sarcophagi... things that required a lot of time and attention and care to create! It felt like each piece was an act of worship, an artist's attempt to honor God and faith with their gift.

And then you look down... down at the tiled floor that had the headstones and memorial markings of thousands of people whose lives were significant in the history of England, and many of them changed the world. The bones of Mary Queen of Scots, Sir Isaac Newton, George Frederic Handel, David Livingstone, and Charles Dickens lay under those stones or behind those walls, in the company of other royals, nobility, scientists, poets, lawyers, and more. Some just had names and dates, but some had beautiful things to say to honor their life: 

Many names I recognized, and many more I didn't. I wanted to take my time and read the epitaphs for every single one, because the longer I lingered, the more I felt the weight of it all; every name represented a real life that was lived and had an influence on someone else. And they all mattered, they all had purpose. They all left a dent in the universe, and whether it was big or small they affected the course of history. 

This particular stone caught my eye and I stopped against the ever-flowing current of tourists to read all of it, then asked my dad to take a photo so I could remember it: 

It may be too small for you to read here, but up close these words were at my eye level: "Of unblemished conduct in every relation of life... He attained... the esteem, admiration and goodwill of all who witnessed his brilliant career." Wow, what a reputation! And for that to be the thing people remember and etch in stone! His name was Sir William Webb Follett, and though I don't claim a deep knowledge of prominent figures in English history, I wondered why I had not heard of such an extraordinary man before. 

Upon reading further, I learned that he died at the age of 48 from an illness that seems to have been brought on or accelerated by his dedication to his work as a legal advocate, member of Parliament, and attorney general to Queen Victoria. Was he then a workaholic, so passionately or obsessively dedicated to the causes he advocated that he forgot to eat, sleep, take care of his health? "The general hope and expectation that he was destined for the highest honors of the law were blighted by his untimely death." So it was a tragedy, not just because it was a life cut short, but also the dreams and hopes of others that were cut short. Would he have been another William Wilberforce or Winston Churchill? Would he have become prime minister of England? We cannot know. But here is his legacy: "Heartily thankful to Almighty God for the many mercies vouchsafed to him, and in humble reliance on the merits of his Redeemer." I think that means perhaps I will get to meet him in heaven some day; I hope so. 

Sir William was only one of the dozens of names I read and wondered about that day. And it makes me wonder what will be written in stone about my life when I am gone? What will my friends and family want to remember when it is all said and done? What will be worth memorializing for generations beyond me, to read and wonder about and be inspired by?