Live Like You Were Dying

As I sit here in my warm house, wearing my snuggliest PJs, typing this entry, a very dear friend of mine sits at home, waiting. She’s waiting to wake tomorrow – that is if she is able to sleep at all tonight – and drive to Duke Medical Center where she will undergo a full hysterectomy. As difficult as this night will be for her and as apprehensive as she is about having the surgery, she’s ready to get it over with. She’s ready to get every female piece removed from her body that could be plagued with the evil enemy of cancer. You see, last month, she found out that she has ‘the cancer gene’. Not that I know much about ‘the cancer gene’, but I know it doesn’t sound good! And from what my friend tells me, it’s definitely not a good thing! So after she fully recovers from tomorrow’s surgery, the doctors will perform a double mastectomy on my dear friend.

While my thoughts this evening are heavy with concern for my friend and hopes that the surgery will go well, my mind wanders and thinks about the many other women who have gone through the same experience, as well as the women who’ve actually not just had ‘the cancer gene’ but had ‘the cancer’. Some of them became survivors and some lost the fight. But one thing is certain for all of these women – when faced with their own mortality, each second they have on earth suddenly seemed more valuable.

I love that country song, “Live Like You Were Dying”. It’s all about a guy who finds out he’s dying and decides to live the rest of his days doing the things he wished he had done before. I especially like the line, “I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying…”

But why is that we wait until we find out that we have cancer or some other potentially terminal illness to live the way we wish we had lived? Why do we wait until we find out that our days on this earth may be limited to love deeper, speak sweeter and give forgiveness? Why do we wait until we are given the news that we may not be around tomorrow to savor the beauty of each day…of each second? Why do we wait until we’re told that we’re dying to live like we’re dying?

Let me give you a little pearl of wisdom and save you the trip to the doctor – you do have a terminal disease…it’s called LIFE!

Each and every one of us is dying, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it! The terminal disease of life is nothing that a hysterectomy or mastectomy will cure; nor will chemotherapy or radiation cure it. No, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change the ultimate outcome. But there is something you can do - you can do something about the way you’re living today – you can live like you were dying. You can love deeper; you can speak sweeter and you can give forgiveness you’ve been denying. You can live each second like you choose to. You can live the way you will have wanted to live when you look back on your life many years from now. You can make the choice to live that way today!

Every day, every second, you have a choice about how you live – you have a choice about what you say, what you think and what you do. What are you choosing to do with each of your days, with each of your seconds? Are you living life like it will go on forever or are you living like you were dying? Go on, live it like you were dying, because you really are!

Sonya May
President, Choose Joy, Inc