On the day I die, a lot will happen.
Many things will change.
The world will be busy.
On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.
The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.
The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be of no use to me.
All the material things I chased and treasured will be left for others to care for or discard, placed into new hands or into the garbage.
On the day I die, the words of my critics, which so hounded and harassed me, will suddenly cease to sting. I will forever be beyond their reach.
The arguments I believed I’d won here will not bring me any satisfaction or solace. They will be merely hollow victories in inconsequential battles that only served to distract me.
The incessant, noisy legion of notifications and alerts will go unanswered; their screaming urgency silenced, no longer rewarded with a reply.
On the day I die, my many nagging regrets will all be resigned permanently to the past, where they should have always been to begin with.
Every superficial worry that I ever labored over, about my waistline or my hairline or (ironically), my worry lines, will fade away.
My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others here, will be left to them to complete anyway. My legacy will be curated by everyone but me.
On the day I die, all the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from my nights and peace from my days will be rendered powerless.
The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be while I lived.
These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.
Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing will happen.
On the day I die, the few people who really know me and truly love me will grieve deeply.
They will feel a void.
They will feel cheated.
They will not feel ready.
They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.
And on that day, more than anything in the world, they will want more time with me. They will plead through tears and sobs for that time, and it will not be given to them.
I know this from those I love and grieve over.
Given this, while I am still alive, I’ll try to remember that my time with those who are home to my heart is finite and fleeting and so very precious, and do my best not to waste a moment of it.
I’ll try not to squander a priceless second burdened by all the other things that will happen on the day I die, because most of those things are not my concern or beyond my control.
Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping us from living even as we live; vying for our attention, competing for our affections, masquerading as meaningful.
Chasing such things robs us of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating Now with those who love us and want only to share it with us.
On the day you die, there will be people who will be gutted by your absence.
Don’t miss the chance to laugh and dream and dance with them while you can.
It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die..
Try not to let your life be stolen in a billion poor choices by all that you’ve been led to believe matters, because on the day you die, the fact is, that much of it simply won’t.
Yes, you and I will die one day.
But before that day comes, let us do our best to live.
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
