Life's Too Short...

So, Sunday evening, my mom tells me that my cousin called with bad news. As it turns out, her husband has brain cancer. And as the story continues to unfold we've learned that the cancer has spread over his entire body. His approximate life span is 2 months. He's refusing chemo and just wants to wait out his time, doing things that he enjoys.

I haven't really talked about it, because I haven't known what to say. I'm not good with serious situations, I never have been. I'm good with light hearted situations and things that in the end don't change the way you view life forever. My mom, grandma and I are going to head down to see him in the hospital either today or tomorrow and hopefully will enjoy a nice long visit with him, knowing in the back of our minds it very well might be the last time we see him alive.

After hearing the news of my cousin's husband, I was hit with the realization that I often take my days and my moments for granted. I've never slowed down long enough to think "What if I don't wake up tomorrow? What will my life say about me?" Sure, when other people have gotten sick or left us too soon, I've paused and pondered the meaning of life. But I've never held onto the lesson I learned very long and I've always managed to go right back to living my life 1,000 days at a time always thinking ahead and never stopping to enjoy the moment. Sure, I live my life in moments that take my breath away, or so I would like to think. But the problem is, I smoosh all the moments together until I get about a year's worth of them together and then, THEN I take a minute to appreciate them.

The sad truth is....life's too short to squish all your moments together. Life is too short to never think "What if I don't wake up tomorrow?" We should think that. Not because we're morbid and obsessed with death, but because we're mature enough to realize that any day could be our last and every day is worth cherishing. The fact of the matter is, we've hit that age where our friends could find out they have cancer or some other terminal illness. Although rare, it's more common for people in their 30's to be hit with life threatening diseases than people in the'r adoloescent years. (I realize I'm not in my 30's yet...but hey, I'm close). A friend of mine went through a crazy illness not that long ago. It turned out to be some kind of something they've yet to determine, but it left her in the ICU for days. At the time, I told myself that I would make a better effort to see her more and to talk to her more often. I think I've seen her twice since then, and the talking...well we don't talk as often as I'd like. But this is exaclty my point. Things always happen where we think "I'm going to be a better friend" "I'm going to tell them that they matter to me" and then we do for a week or so and we're right back to taking life for granted again.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying I'm going to be good at living, really LIVING each and every day of my life. I'm saying that life is too short for us to forget that we should truly L I V E each day of our life. Life is too short to not call your friends and to not plan dinner dates with them. Life is too short to plan 1,000 days in advance. Plan for today. Plan for tomorrow. But stop there. Make plans you can appreciate and not ones that you go through routinely. Enjoy the plans you make. Enjoy the time you have with your friends and loved ones. The bottom line is that one day it may be the last day you spend with them. And the hard part is that it's hard for us to know the majority of the time if it is the last day we will see them. Life is too short to pretend like bad things don't sometimes happen to good people. And life is too short to not cherish every moment of every day.

"But friendship is precious; not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement, the greater part of life is sunshine. "
-Thomas Jefferson