For some strange reason, I awoke this morning with a question on my mind. I have no idea where it came from, but the question has been interwoven through my thoughts all day long. The question nagging my mind is "what would you do if you only had 24 hours to live?"
Imagine you awake tomorrow morning to the sound of your alarm clock or however you normally regain consciousness and you receive this message. It's not important how the message is delivered, only that you believe it. Imagine that you receive a message that says you've only got 24 hours to live. And for the purpose of this exercise, you believe it. So what would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see? Who would you tell? What would you say? What would no longer have any importance to you? What words would you struggle to get out and who would you say them to? What would you leave unsaid? Would you say good-bye?
You'd be in such a state of shock, I predict you'd probably lose at least an hour trying to wrap your head around the idea of your own impending death but hopefully you'd come to terms with the idea before letting your final day slip completely away. Eventually the shock wears off and like it or not, you'd let go of your own mortality to focus outside of yourself. Obviously you're not going to waste 8-10 hours of your final day at work and hopefully you don't waste the ten minutes it would take you to call up your boss and tell him to "take this job and shove it." Plus, I suspect there would still be this tiny glimmer of hope buried inside your heart that would prevent you from making that call...just in case the death sentence was wrong.
Twenty-four hours is really very limiting. Twenty-four days would allow you to see places and do a couple of big things on your bucket list but twenty-four hours means you have to prioritize and get serious about who and what is most important. I suspect you'd waste some time, spending it on things that are more habitual than important. It's not like we spend time training for this day so lack of experience would definitely cause us to stumble a bit.
I spent the last few weeks with my aunt Kay when she was dying of cancer. I really don't know how long she "knew" she was dying before her diagnosis but she only lived a short time after the doctor broke the bad news to her. Even though it was only a few weeks, she still had time to go through several stages of grief. I witnessed anger, fear and a level of acceptance. Maybe acceptance is the wrong word because she was very afraid of the afterlife and her place in it so maybe acceptance is too strong a word but she definitely resigned herself to the inevitable. From the very beginning she comforted me instead of the other way around and I'm pretty sure she told me that she loved me at least 20 times a day. She always was the type to say I love you easily but I felt it so much more during the final days with her, probably because my senses were heightened and my nerves were completely raw. For some reason her biggest concern was getting her affairs in order...making sure she gave away what she wanted to. She really didn't seem to need a lot of time with her loved ones individually...maybe because the cancer was causing a lot of severe pain and the morphine became the most important part of her life. One night when we were completely alone, she said all she needed to say to me. She let me know how she really felt and I guess the beauty of it was I already knew it. She took the time to say the words that didn't need to be said....but she said them anyway, just in case.
So back to the present moment...how would you spend your final day? What message would you leave the world? What would you need to say?
For me, there's a thousand different things I could say or do but I couldn't possible get it all done in 24 hours. I'm positive I wouldn't tell anyone that today was my last day and it really isn't my style to give every person in my life a few minutes of chat time on the phone or via text message. Not to mention I doubt I could hold it together and act normal so I'd probably avoid most people as much as possible. I think I'd pack a picnic lunch, grab my special girl if I could steal her away from school and take her and my sons to the park. We'd have a picnic and I'd go down the slide as many times as they wanted me to. I really can't think of anything too exciting to do but I know they love going to the park and having a picnic so that would be a great memory for them to remember. Eventually, when they were older, I think knowing how I chose to spend my final moments with them would mean a lot. Later in the evening, after I'd put my sons to bed for the last time, I'd probably spend my last few hours writing letters to the friends and family I love. I'd tell them all things I needed to say, should have said and still wanted to say. I'd open my heart and expose every ounce of vulnerability I have. I'd spend all my last minutes pouring out my heart to say all that needed to be said...and hope it's enough.
What about you?
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