The Beauty and The Tragedy

When I think about what life was like before my diagnosis, I just smile and shake my head. I definitely understood the whole "live life to the fullest" thing, but didn't quite have it mastered. I knew that working hard and really applying myself in school and in my career made for a meaningful life. I knew that forging strong relationships with people I loved and respected made life worthwhile. And I knew that travel and art and music made life beautiful.

But I really didn't get it. How could I? We don't really understand how to live life until we realize that our days are numbered -- and I don't mean realize it in the conceptual sense. I'm talking about the day we face the reality, in a sobering and inescapably real way, that YES, I, [insert your name here], WILL DIE ONE DAY.

You stop pining away for things. You stop plugging away for some end goal way off in the distance that may or may never materialize. You take the moment you're given and clutch it close because it's the only one you're guaranteed. You go after your life instead of just letting it happen. You make each moment precisely what you want it to be. You live deliberately.

The beauty of this is that once you face your death -- whether fast approaching via a terminal illness hell-bent on taking your life quickly, or one moving slow and steady like many cancers, you start to truly appreciate life and live it the way it should be lived. It's a beautiful way to live. Your moments, even the most mundane, are filled with vibrant, pulsating, electric overtones. You look at your friends and family as if you're seeing them for the last time even though you're not -- the love and memories and fondness for them is almost overwhelming. You approach life and all of its challenges with a wisdom to which not many people can relate. Whatever the issue or stress of the day is, it's not really that big of a deal. The only thing that's life or death is life or death. 

The tragedy about this way of being is that it is lost on so many. Countless cancer patients, or people battling other illnesses, are filled with anger, regret, and/or fear. They are afraid of the pain, or the people they might leave behind, or the uncertainty of future life that they face. They totally miss the golden opportunity they've been given to really examine their lives and celebrate the people and things that make their lives great. They are too caught up in worry about the future to celebrate the present moment they're given. Time is marching on whether we want it to or not. We are inching closer to death whether we want to admit it or not. What we do with our time, how we honor our time, and how we revel in every last second of our time -- this is the stuff that truly matters.

And when you realize that -- like I have -- being alive is an astoundingly beautiful thing.