I am eighty one and nearly everyone I grew up with is gone. There is no one left who remembers the same things I do. How do I carry that?

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

This psalm is attributed to Moses, a man who buried an entire generation in the wilderness. He counts out the standard length of a life and observes how quickly it is over. He is not being morbid about it. He goes on to ask God to teach him to number his days, which is a request that only makes sense coming from someone still living one.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

Hebrews has just walked its readers through a long roll call of the faithful dead, and then tells them they are ringed by everyone who has already finished. The image is a stadium filled with people who have run the course themselves. The writer's point is that those who went on ahead are not absent from the race. In his picture they are the crowd around you.