Love is the ultimate achievement

Phil Cobb

Tragedy struck a little too close to home this past Sunday.

It has no direct impact on me or my family, but a friend experienced something this past Sunday that just doesn’t happen to people we know, in places we know.

We’re fortunate as a small-town newspaper that the overwhelming majority of what we are faced with on a day-to-day basis is of a positive nature.

There’s the recent implement shed fire near Elmo in which hundreds of thousands of dollars of farm equipment were lost and the mobile home fire in the Nodaway County town of Graham where a family lost most, if not all, of their home and its contents.

There are many in our community suffering from health ailments, most prominently cancer.

These topics are infrequent enough that we still feel it too.

I pray the frequency is never enough that we become immune.

We do not enjoy reporting about people’s misery.

But we hope in some way, by informing our readers of these sad events, we can raise awareness and help in the healing and rebuilding process.

People can only help if they are made aware of the need.

Fortunately, these stories are the exception in Nodaway County and not the norm.

However, there’s no shortage of horrific news each day in this imperfect world.

It’s just that it usually happens somewhere else — to someone else.

When it happens to people we know — people whom we care about — it brings the reality much too near.

An obituary on today’s Page 2 reflects one such incident.

It reminds us that we should never take anything for granted, that we should make the most of each opportunity.

It causes us to take inventory of our blessings and to reflect on all the good experiences and memories we have created with those whom we love.

And really, I believe that it is the best thing and the only thing we can really hope to achieve in this world.

If you have experienced real, true love, I believe you have experienced God.

And vice versa.

I can’t imagine there is a higher goal any of us can aspire to than that.

Phil Cobb is the owner and publisher of the Maryville Daily Forum and The Post.