[2020-09-19] Loving more deeply
A friend sent me a list of nine important facts to remember as we grow older. Number 7 was "Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die."
That one struck me, as it places all of us on the same continuum rather than in distinct groups. You see, since my diagnosis, it feels like there are 3 kinds of people:
- The healthy - I'm not dying
- The diagnosed - OMG, I could die
- The dying - I've been told to get my affairs in order
The reality is that any of us could die at any moment, and yet I think we behave differently depending on which group we think we're in. When I was healthy (or thought I was healthy, as I'm sure that I've been carrying this cancer around for some time), I worked too hard, slept too little and spent insufficient time with my loved ones. I felt invincible, and thought that I'd rest once I retired.
When I was told that I had cancer, I worked for an additional week as I came to grips with my diagnosis. And then I said, "OK, I'm not in group 1 anymore. I'm in group 2." So, I stepped back from work to focus on my medical appointments and my health.
I also started this blog, driven by a desire not just to document my journey but also to create something that would be a legacy regardless of which group I find myself in in the future or where on the continuum I land.
Reflecting on this, I recalled Tim McGraw's hit song "Live Like You Were Dying." It was released in 2004, the same year that McGraw's father died of cancer.
"Live Like You Were Dying" was written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman. According to Wikipedia, "The duo crafted the song based on family and friends who learned of illnesses (cancers), and how they often had a new perspective on life upon learning they had limited time."
The song is told from the perspective of a man in his early 40s who learns that his father has a life-threatening illness and asks his dad: "Man, what'd you do?" The answer includes doing things he'd always wanted to do—skydiving, mountain climbing, bullriding, fishing—but also changing his approach to others:
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying...
I was finally the husband that most of the time I wasn't
And I became a friend a friend would like to have
The father's overall message to his son is that he hopes he gets the chance to live like he was dying, in other words, aware that sweet time is not an infinite resource and that we should do and be what we want now, not at some point in the future.
Wherever I am on the continuum between birth and death—and few of us know where that is—I will strive to love more deeply, to speak more sweetly, and to shine more brightly. I hope you do too.
