Live Like They Were Dying

Live Like They Were Dying

You know a phrase has transcended even being a cliché as soon as they make a sappy country song out of it. For years people have encouraged us to live each day as if it were your last. Several events of the last week or so have had me wanting to put a different angle on this view. In the last month death has seemed very real to me. Not that I’ve personally been in any life threatening situations, but several people that I know have either died, come real close or had loved ones die. Last week I got a email that a co-worker at another office had a seizure and died on the bus on the way to work. He was 29. Two other co-workers had parents die. A family friend has been hospitalized. My mother-in-law had a stroke. Just today I found out that another co-worker who I worked with for months died over the weekend. Last week was also the 7th anniversary of my father’s death. Also, in the last week somebody has erected a large cross at the scene of the fatal accident that I witnessed on New Years Day. So like it or not I’ve been forced to think about death more than I cared to lately.
My brother-in-law sent us an email that really got me looking at life from a different perspective. His next door neighbor passed away this weekend. He was being rather introspective because he and my sister were the last two people to see her alive and conscious. In the email he brought up the idea that you never know when it might be the last time you see somebody. That got me thinking. Rather than living like the country song as if you were the one dying, what would it be like if we treated everybody as if this my be their last day here?

Just a thought.