What Would You Do With Only Six Months to Live?

Or  5, 20, or 30 years? 

I think about this a lot. 

By the time you're in your sixties, you know your time is limited.   My dear sister-in-law Delilah died at 51.  My lifelong friend Rob died at 60.

I watched them, and I tried to learn.  But I was still left the problem of what the hell to do with this information on a daily basis?   Another day slips by, used up by making phone calls about bills, changing the sheets on the bed, grocery shopping,  researching cooktops.

Nora Ephron wrote after she'd been diagnosed with cancer but before the rest of the world knew:

"The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result.  I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven't.  I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?"  (I Remember Nothing, 2010,  p. 129)

It's a burden, all this questioning and evaluating.  It nags at me.


A week ago I found this in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I grabbed this page  and pored over it.  It's a list of 50 things to do if you've been told you're going to die (which we all have been, one way or another, some more specifically than others).   It  was put together by Hospice by the Bay, with some content provided by the Singapore Hospice Council, and the list starts out like this:

1. First things first, remember you're not dead yet.  [I find this empowering, even though it's perfectly obvious.]

Here are my favorites:

5.   Laugh
8.   Find joy in the mundane. Sit by the window and pay attention to the song of birds.
11. Gobble up food samples in grocery stores.  [I'm always in too much of a hurry.]
16. Talk openly about your illness...Don't shut out other people.  Don't isolate yourself.
24.  Seek out and attend to what is divine, holy or sacred to you. [To me, this means thinking about my strongest values and honoring them by acting on them, which always makes me feel better.]
30.  Share your grief. Witnessing grief gives others permission to grieve.
31.  Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details. [my favorite favorite]
39.  Forgive yourself.
46.  Fall asleep under the stars. [Camping is good if you can manage it.]
50. Take a clean sheet of paper and write down another 50 things to do.

You can find the entire list at www.LivingBeforeLeaving.org

What did Nora Ephron do?

"I aim low.  My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. (Followed by a Lactaid).  My idea of a perfect night is a good play and dinner at Orso.  The other day I found a bakery that bakes my favorite childhood cake, and it was everything I remembers; it made my week.  The other night we were coming up the FDR Drive and Manhattan was doing its fabulous, magical, twinkling thing, and all I could think about was how lucky I've been to spend my adult life in New York City."  (I Remember Nothing, p. 129).

My sister-in-law painted watercolors.  Rob cooked.