What Might You Change...

If you KNEW, within a day or so, when you'd die?

(I believe that the sugar high that was Disney is finally ebbing a bit)

Last night - late, while brain crunching the subtleties of Lost and deeper meanings of life - it occurred to me that I am at about the same chronological time in my life as she was in her life when our precious Mom first started having the symptoms of the cancer that would eventually lead to her death.

Those that know Goofy and me know how close we were to Mom. She was a best friend, a mentor, and, on occasion, a pain in the ass like the rest of us. LOL.

I have yet to find anyone that gives as thoughtful counsel as she. I have learned to keep my own counsel, which I know is part of what she taught us. I still miss those opportunities to bounce things off of her to get her perspectives. She had an inate ability to sort through all the crap and bring things down to the bare bones. A very good thing to do when trying to make a decision.

In the interim, I've triumphed and I've failed, and it's all good...how it's supposed to be.

She taught me that too. (see? I did listen and learn :)

Life is too short not to take risks...

"What's the worst that can happen?" she'd say, "You fail. So what? You start over and you've learned not to do that again. :)"

She was the smartest, most interesting, complex, most adored and undoubtedly the most loving and infuriating person that I have ever had the privilege to know.

I miss her every single day.

Maybe it's that I just had a birthday - my eleventh without her, (my God, how can that be?) - that put these contemplative musings into my mind in the quiet of the night.

Maybe it's that it dawned on me that I am roughly the same age as she was when that journey began.

She was just a kid when I was born. Married for nearly two years by then, and still not even 19.5 years older than I.

There is much I could say about why she left home so early, the adversity of those times and the times leading up to her divorce and how she managed to come through it all, but the only really important point is that she felt happy, well loved and free when she got there. The rest doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that she had the opportunity to really live her life...AND, she took it. She lived, and she did it with intent.

Most of us don't do that, really. We do what we think we are supposed to do.

We work, we pay bills, we mow the lawn and wash the cars.

The kids get to soccer practice and swimming and school and birthday parties, and - if we are being good at our jobs - they see their grandparents and all the people that love them .

As much as they can.

At the end of the day, we fall into bed exhausted, just to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

We exist.

Day to Day.

And those days add up before we know what's happened.

Think about it....is that what you want? Is that all there is?

There was one day in the hospital of that last time when she looked at me and said

that the last few years, cancer and all, were among the best in her life.

Being free to be herself, to follow her own dreams, to travel, to have friends she loved, to spend time with Goofy and me...it was a good way to be leaving.

I do not believe she regretted much of those years.

I wonder how many people can honestly say that.

And then, on that awful, beautiful sunny day in May, the world quit spinning on the same axis that it had always been on. It was subtle. It was a slight shift, but it was decidedly, noticeably different.

People honked their horns at stoplights turned green, and they flipped each other off, and they treated each other badly for no good reason.

I couldn't comprehend it for the longest time.

Didn't they know that the world was forever changed?

None of this silly stuff mattered, NONE OF IT, but they didn't understand.

It was so obvious to us, and yet everyone around us was oblivious. It was surreal, and it was amazingly clear.

And on that day, my entire world and view of life was forever changed.

I began to live as if tomorrow may never come. Not that I always succeed. It's so damn easy to slip into the line with all the rest of the lemmings. It takes conscious effort to remind oneself that those lines everyone is standing in don't matter.

I don't know that as humans, we are ever entirely able to grasp our own mortality really. It seems so far away - no matter how old we become, we just feel like we always have, really. Oh, we know that we'll die someday. It's just that it's never today.

I work very hard to remember every day that it's all ethereal, slipping slowly away as time marches on regardless of who is still in the parade.

As the old cliche' goes,

At the end of your life, you won't regret the time you didn't spend at work.

I think of this as I make decisions in my life. Not that I don't lose track of that notion from time to time. When I do, I feel that kick in the butt that reminds me to live each day as best I can. Time here is short. Follow your heart.

Some observers of my last eleven years might be perplexed at some of my decisions.

I graduated from college. I quit my job, started a dot com, ended the dot com, went back to a real job, left that one, work from home now - sometimes.

I'll probably go get a "real" job soon, but that's just a means to an end. I work to live, not the other way around. It's that necessary evil that fuels my dreams and provides the means to do what I need to do.

And I learned to scuba dive. It's my passion, discovered, finally. Although, mostly in warm water, lol. I am most at peace and feel more connected to the world when I am on, near, in the water than anywhere else. I think that this was true for Mom too. She loved the water, as I do - even though I can get seasick at times (even under water, but that's another story all together, lol).

I base a lot of my choices on the next dive opportunity. Life is leading me around the world in the water, and I can't wait.

I don't know how long I have on this earth, but I plan to spend a good deal of it nearby and under the water. With Goofy.

You can come along too, if you want. I think everyone should dive, and see what the largest part of the world looks like. We are just a small part of all of that...imagine.

I also plan to spend a lot of time with my family of friends. There is nothing more important than those connections...they are the point.

My wish for you is that you have the ability and the nerve to make sure that you do not lose those connections in your life. It's not easy. It's hard work, but it's worth the effort.

At the end of your days, whenever that comes along, you want to be the one going out satisfied that you lived that time to the fullest - whatever that means to you.

So...forget the laundry and the lawn for a day or two. Enjoy the day, merely for the fact that it's one of the days of your life.

You won't regret it.

M&G