Category: Death

“The cancer is winning.” I was told today.

“One year. Maybe six months left to live.”

“I was doing great yesterday, but today, I’m not doing good at all.”

We sat together for a while. Both processing. Me blurting out a swear word every few minutes. Him slowly cluing me in to where his head was at.

“…I must stay positive.”

“…I have to keep trying to take class.”

“…I might be losing, but I am going to write this final chapter.”

And it was in those three lines that I think the words he needed to hear found him. All I did was emphasize, reinforce, and offer my full support.

Here’s why I think those three lines were so on point:

We must stay positive. Not delusionally positive while the world burns down around us. But strategically optimistic. So that we can see opportunity, believe that the world can be made into a better place, and trust in ourselves to act.

We must keep learning. Because if we’re not learning, we’re regressing. There is no stagnant. And what we find on the other side of our curiosities is legacy. Because curiosities lead to topic, topic leads to creation, creation leads to tribe, and tribe… well, tribe is who carries forth our legacy after we’re gone.

We must control what’s within our control. There was nothing left to do. Cancer was winning. But choosing how to spend his remaining time? Who to spend that time with? What words he wanted to author on the final pages of his life’s book? …All well within his control. And exactly where the mind should be focused when all else feels so uncontrollable.

A friend and I got to talking about memento mori—the Latin phrase that means “Remember your mortality.”

I asked if she had ever heard of the Memento Mori Calendar. She said no. After I explained what it was, she said, “Oh no… that would freak me out!”

To which I replied, “That’s the point!”

You get the Memento Mori calendar, not for decoration, aesthetics, or because it’ll be a fun coloring activity for you to do… but precisely so that it’ll freak you out.

…And hopefully so much so that you’ll get busy living your life to the fullest. With fewer hesitations… more bold choices… and no regrets left when your time comes.

Because your time will come.

…It’s not a question of if… only a question of during which dot on the calendar.

I had some time to kill after an errand and before a dinner yesterday.

…Not enough time to go home and too early to show up to dinner.

So I started driving around aimlessly when I found myself curiously turning into a cemetary.

I’m not quite sure why I decided to make that turn, but I leaned into the moment anyway.

I took my foot off the gas and allowed my car to creep its way slowly, slowly forward.

Past the gravestones… past the trees… past the flower dedications…

And I read the names.

I imagined the lives lived.

I saw laughing and crying, working and dancing, succeeding and failing…

But mostly, I saw loving and losing.

It took me about 20 minutes to slow roll through that cemetery…

And it resulted in one of the most profound meditations I’ve had in a while.

Each one of those gravestones represented a life lived by a person who had a consciousness just like us… who similarly and most likely felt like the main character of reality… who knew about mortality, of course, but never really believed it actually applied to them, too.

Maybe you should try it? Maybe it’d result in a similar experience for you? Maybe it’s exactly the kind of perspective sobering errand you could use in your life right about now?

One day, everything I’ve ever written will no longer be read.

…Everything I’ve ever recorded will no longer be watched.

…Everything I’ve ever said and done will be forgotten.

…Everyone I’ve ever loved and cared for will be gone.

And yet.

I still choose to keep on writing.

…To keep on recording and sharing things.

…To keep on saying and doing things.

…To keep on loving and caring and building and creating.

Because the point isn’t to leave something behind that people will always remember me by after I’m gone.

The point is to leave everything behind. To exhaust this temporary experience with every ounce of life force I have. To hold on to nothing and give all that’s inside to the collective in some small way or form.

Living for some legacy we won’t be there to feel?

…Or living to feel?

…And letting legacy do what it will as we leave our experience naked and empty-handed, yet content and full.

…It’s an event where people come together and celebrate—in a way most appropriate for the person—a life lived.

We celebrate this life because it’s a miracle it ever even happened—against odds in the trillions to one ballpark (that’s trillions with a “t”). We celebrate this life because of the impact it had on ours—one that helped shape our character and identity as we know it, in both the biggest and tiniest of ways. We celebrate this life because of the impact it had on others—an impact which likely rippled further out into the world than they or we could ever truly know.

And yes, we mourn the loss because the above has come to an end.

…But, does it though?

What if the celebration of life event is an exercise in keeping the person’s impact alive?

What if we could carry the best of that person’s legacy with us and continue to ripple it forward into the lives of others?

What if the person we lost was a byproduct of hundreds of thousands of people’s legacies who came before… all totaling up to the person we loved so dearly?

And what if by celebrating them not only at the event, but regularly, you’re helping total up the character and identity of those around into something millions of others will eventually come to appreciate and love so dearly?

Dear busy person,

A colleague and friend of mine just found out he has 6 months to 2 years to live.

This news could’ve just as easily been given to you.

…It could actually be beneficial for you to imagine it was.

Close your eyes. Visualize yourself in a doctor’s office after getting tests done the previous week. Today is results day. The doctor comes in and gets right to the point—no small talk. The above is the situation. And it’s said plainly and as a matter of fact. He says he’s sorry and walks out.

…What exactly were you so busy doing again?

…What was it that you were complaining about again?

…What important thing(s) did you say you were going to wait until later to do again?

The thought of death gives us the urgency to really live—whatever that means to you.

But when we bury death as an abstract, foreign concept into the deep, dark corners of our mind—we lose that urgency, don’t we?

Maybe it’s time we resurface it. Maybe it’s time we think about it again. Maybe today is a good day to imagine we only have 6 months left to live.

…Now what?

“You should take him on a vacation… so that he can best enjoy the time he has left.”

“…Why? So we can forget and drink beers on the beach? …No. No. I’m not doing that. I’m not letting him give up. I’m not giving up. I’ll take him for a walk by the water… so we can talk. I think that’s what he needs most—what he wants most right now. I’ll even help him change is lifestyle so that all the crap gets cut. But quitting isn’t what I want on either of our minds.”

—After hearing a mutual friend’s cancer metastasized and there was nothing more the doctors could do.