DAY 36 :: Pay attention to the p.s.

Responses have started coming in from readers like you, each answering in their own way the question: "What would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live?"

From Georgia comes this beautiful and poetic answer from Barbara Durham:

Making

Come now friends
gather round from far and near, silver and gold,
of times past old and not so long ago

Dear family come
and surround me
with your wall of love that guards
but can’t prevent

And husband  – my heart
my heart cannot allow the
thought of existence on different planes
There are no words

Let me touch all your faces and gaze
into eyes that hold so much
Please look into mine and take a
part of me with you
as I take pieces of you
to where only I may go.
For now.

I have loved you all so much

-Barbara Durham

I so loved her poem, and yet I loved even more the note she wrote below it in her email. I asked if I could post both responses along with a photo, and she agreed. Sometimes I wonder if the truth is in the aside, the part where we believe the tape recorder has been turned off, the unofficial us, the p.s. after the letter. Here is her note:

Dear Patti –

Above is my submission in response to your request for our thoughts of our last 37 days. The first thing that crossed my mind was wondering how many of those 37 days I should spend shoveling out and remodeling the house so it would look decent for after the funeral. The second involved lots of chocolate eaten while traveling to exotic places. And then the third thought was about what was really important – the people I love, having them all here, and having us all be sad for a while. I am not a writer or a brave person and would typically have let this sit until at least tomorrow, saying that it needed work and editing and reviewing, after which I would have thrown it away.  But as a 56-year-old menopausal woman who reads your blog and is trying to learn that it is ok to color outside the lines, I shall not let fear of failure or criticism hold me back and am sending this on to you before I go with my better judgment or worrying about the fact that tomorrow I will feel terrible because I did not find a way to include a mention of my precious dog Libby Lou, the reunions with the loved ones gone before that I fully believe will happen when I cross, or fun things I should do rather than dwell on how my heart would hurt so much at the leaving.

Wishing you only good things,

Barbara

In those lines are the truths we can all identify with, that we can see ourselves in. Cleaning our houses, hesitating to send something for fear it is not good enough, regretting that we didn’t mention precious Libby Lou.

And so, for bravery, for sending and not throwing away, for revealing the power of the p.s., an inscribed copy of LIFE IS A VERB will be winging its way to Barbara as soon as I receive copies from the publisher (which could be this week!).

My thanks, Barbara, for your bravery and truth.

If you would like to answer the question, "What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live," please email your answer in whatever form you’d like–art, poetry, photography, sculptures in butter–along with a photograph (if you’d like). It would be wonderful to hear from you. What can we learn from each other about our preparing for the end?

And so, now only 36 days until the official publication date of LIFE IS A VERB.