Immortal? Shame On Me.

     Today at my practicum, I met with a woman who just received her doctors dreaded prognosis. She has approximately nine to twelve months to live. The woman is not married, she has no children...only her treasured cat. Her mother is still alive as is her sister, both living in Nebraska. The woman is in her upper fifties, recently retired after working as a licensed clinical social worker in a high security mental health prison for 20+ years. 
     She has multiple myeloma. When she came to my office, she wanted to process her thoughts about this end of life business. Her first words were, "I don't feel like I'm dying." That isn't a phrase most people hear on a regular basis. "I don't feel like I'm dying." Unfortunately, my job requires that I do a lot of talking about impending death, but for whatever reason, this little phrase struck me personally today. 
     I don't feel like I'm dying either, but I am. Each day we all inch closer and closer to whenever the time will be that we will indeed die. As I sat and talked with the woman, she told me her experience of purchasing her own cremation. She listed all of the tasks she needs to accomplish to make the transition easiest for those who love her...adding her sister's name to her car title and bank account, giving her sister a key to her safety deposit box, deciding who will take her cat, completing her will, finishing her advance directive, etc. Then she starting listing all the things she wants to do before she's gone. 
     She wants to visit New York. She's planning a trip in May with her sister. She would like to see New Orleans. She wants to go to Italy. As she listed these things, all I could think was, "Time is so limited." We hear this phrase often, but I don't think we always appreciate it. Time really is limited. We never know when our days are up. 
     So today, my challenge is this. Live every day to the fullest. No, I mean really live each day to the fullest. Make a bucket list. Write down all the things you truly love and want to accomplish in this short lifetime. Don't wait. Start doing it today, nay yesterday! Because once you're sitting in front of that physician, receiving that dreaded prognosis, chances are it'll already be too late. Stop living in denial... 

...We all died a little today...