What if you found out you were going to die tomorrow, or sometime in the way to near future? Would you change the course of your hours? Would the way you approached the minutes be altered in any profound way? Why don't we all live that way anyhow? Why do we wait for the shadows of age to creep up on us, or the dire diagnosis to be handed to us on the scribbled scroll of some doctor's official patient log? Why do we pass by the days resigned to whatever others choose to throw at our feet?
Maybe I'm extra melancholic today for having spent part of my birthday afternoon visiting with the spirits of my Dad, Uncle, and two of my Grandparents. Maybe that's good, though. Sometimes, we gather a small amount of peace as we're wandering the silent stones of a cemetery, and we wonder why we feel that way when every other journey there has brought us only sadness and the weeping of our souls. And we realize that the reason we feel solace is because we've been offered the gift of awareness and gratitude, for the moment we're in and the moments that will hopefully arrive. I've had six more years of life now than my Dad did. If I have still more, what will I do with them? We should be mindful of how we answer such questions. We should make them good years, years filled with family, friends, kindness, grace, and living each moment fully and perhaps, at times feverishly. Each moment is the only one we truly exist within fully.
