As if it's the last

I've always been stymied by the admonition to live each day as if it's your last. What does that mean, really? If I were told that my life would suddenly end at midnight (if, say, someone from the future told me that I'd be shot or the house would burn down or I'd choke on a corn chip), my priorities for the day would be completely different than they are now. (For starters, I'd avoid people with guns, leave the house, or change my snacking behavior!) I wouldn't do much on my current work projects except to make sure that others knew how to pick up where I left off. I wouldn't clean the house in preparation for this weekend's house party, but I would madly organize various things so it would be easier for people who are left to clean up after me.

If I had a week to live, my priorities would be different, once again. And the same is true for a month or a year or a decade. If I *knew* with certainty that I had another sixty years to live, that would shape my days, too. I'd take better care of my teeth, and increase my retirement savings.

I've struggled with the idea of setting priorities for an uncertain future for a long time. How to make sure the critical things happen without compromising long term goals? Straddle the possibilities of a short life and a long life? And still, somehow, try to be present for and enjoy every minute of life?

My usual struggles with this paradox were compounded when Sandy had a terminal illness. We reacted with some urgency when she was first diagnosed, and made sure the big things were taken care of. But we didn't want to assume she was about to die, and certainly didn't want others treating her that way. In fact, most days, her life had a pattern that was far from urgent. She went to yoga, had massages, met with her therapist, worked with her physical therapists, acted as if she had a future.

We talked about what we'd do if we learned she had only a few months left. But what we didn't know is that all such plans are worthless if you're already debilitated when the doctor tells you that you don't have much time.

In books, on TV, in movies, people are told they have only a few months to live at times that they look and feel healthy. They have choices. They can travel, reconnect with the people they love, finish their autobiographies, opt to spend all their time in the garden, whatever they want. It didn't look like that in reality.

Sandy at Craters National Park in Idaho, on May 14, just a little
over two months before she died. If we'd known she had so little
time, would she have chosen to spend it differently? Or if we'd
known earlier that the cancer had spread to her central nervous
system, would we have tried more aggressive treatment and
still failed? She was always afraid that she'd spend her last days
chasing miracles with painful treatments instead of being in her life.

Sandy was in a great deal of pain when we met with her oncologist on July 5, looking for options. Sandy wanted to try whatever treatments were available to her. We really weren't expecting to hear that we were done. Afterwards, we didn't talk about what she wanted to do with her last few weeks. Not really. We talked about a few priorities: signing the new will, making sure her body donation was all set up, and seeing friends and family. But all the things we'd talked about doing as a last fling — all the places she wanted to see and the splurges she talked about, getting married legally somewhere — were off the table. After we got back from the doctor, she never even made it out of the living room again until she was carried out on a stretcher to go to the hospice facility. Once there, she never got out of bed.

I know this was our story, this was Sandy's story, and it's not universal. Just this week, I learned about a colleague who had lain down to take a nap, had a heart attack, and never woke up. Was she living the day as if it were her last? In some ways, we were fortunate to know the end was probably coming and to have a year to make sure Sandy crossed some things off her bucket list and had a chance to have the conversations she wanted to have.

I think about these things a great deal lately, particularly because I feel unnerved about my own death. Having witnessed Sandy's death, when I picture my own, I see her there with me. I feel horribly alone in the world every time I remember that she won't be there holding my hand.

My life has changed dramatically in the past ten years, so I know it's time to update the legal documents. They'd been done originally with the assumption that either we'd go together or Sandy would be here to take care of things.  I hope to get the big things done soon, so that if I die suddenly, it's all doable. But I also have to set goals that extend beyond the immediate future, so that if I'm here for a while, I can at least make good use of the time. It's rather daunting.

With all of this swirling around in my head, I went searching for a New Yorker poem I read last year, one that Sandy and I both appreciated. It's called Maxim, by Carl Dennis, and it was in the June 7, 2010 issue of the magazine. The whole thing is lovely, and I encourage you to click the link to read it. These are the lines I am trying to hold in my thoughts:

Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off.