I wrote yesterday about my friend John Kline singing to his wife Ann through the window of a nursing home. If you missed it, it’s worth the read and the listen!

John’s singing was reported on John Krasinski’s Some Good News and picked up by BreakPoint. But these aren’t the only national outlets to pick it up. A few days later, World Magazine, a Christian news service, reported it this way:

Actor John Krasinski, known for his role in the 2005–2013 sitcom The Office, debuted a YouTube series last week called Some Good News. On his kickoff program, Krasinski sat in front of a logo drawn by his daughters and reported good news submitted by the public. He played a video montage of people cheering healthcare workers, showcased an elderly man singing “Amazing Grace” through a window with his bedridden wife,… 

“An elderly man…” A quick sentence that takes on entirely new meaning if you know the man and his wife and saw him singing with her. “An elderly man”? We’re talking about John Kline! Dr. John Kline. Dean of the Academic Instructor School at Maxwell Air Force Base and later highest-ranking civilian at Air University.

The point is, real people, real people with stories, long stories, are reduced to a sentence or part of a sentence. The BreakPoint report on April 6 gives John’s name and has a link to the broadcast. The World Magazine report on April 8 just mentions him in passing. Neither is wrong, but it does give one pause.

Despite what I may have done, if I live long enough (and maybe I already have!), one day I’ll be “an elderly man…” doing (I hope) something as noble as John singing to his wife with Alzheimer’s.  

When David’s time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying, “I am about to go the way of all the earth…” (1 Kings 2.1, 2, ESV)

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4.14, NIV)

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90.12, ESV)