Lillian Garnell Schilke

The hyphen is used as a symbol to designate that something occurred between two dates. We could use them to describe an event in our lives such as how long you attended school, how many years you lived in a certain place, or a stretch of time you had a job at a certain company.

We use the hyphen without thought. We readily accept that it means something, but that it is really of no consequence in the discussion. We accept the fact that it relates events that, though significant, are not of any real value.

Therefore, when you see them used to indicate that a life has passed, unless you were involved with that life, or know someone who was, you tend to use the hyphen as just another indicator of the passage of time.

We focus on the dates, but it’s the hyphen that is the real story in the measure of an individual. A symbol will never do justice to the loss we feel after the passing of a loved one.

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.

Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

The fires of this life had no power over her. She walked with the fourth man that was in that furnace. She has been transformed and now sings in the chorus, “Oh great king, live forever!”