Day 6 :: Be totally devoted
Patti,
I just wanted you to know that I wanted to write something for your 37 Days countdown to Life is a Verb, but I just couldn’t.
Every time I started to think about it, I started crying, and I just can’t go there. My mom died when I was 20 and she was 42, and for the next 22 years I worried that I, too, would die at the same age.
The year 2000 was a long one for me — the start of a new millennium, but also the beginning of my fated 42nd year. On April 30th 2001, I turned 43, heaved a sigh of relief, and decided to stop living my life as if there was a death sentence hanging over me, but rather as if I would live eternally.
It is surprising what that decision has meant to me. Because I have all the time in the world, I can rush around if I need to without resenting it (too much, at least), but I can also stop and admire a goldfinch because, hey, I have all the time in the world!
I thought I was the only person who did that, who waited for that fateful year. My father died at 53, so I’ve been waiting a long time–as did Scott–to see what would happen when I turned 53, with the same sense of dread as Scott described. That won’t come until the year 2012 for me, but I understood immediately what Scott meant and could image the feeling of freedom when he survived his 42nd year.
What if living as if you only have 37 days actually means living as if you will live forever?
Recently, I received another email, from someone else, a woman who was in a recent training I facilitated and who stopped me cold in a brainstorming session when I was flip charting for the group–"Ebullient!" I heard someone offer as a description of their feeling in a particular situation. "Ebullient?" I turned slowly to face the group. "Who on earth said ‘ebullient?’" And then I heard her offer what she knew I needed: "Two l’s!" she shouted, "two l’s!"
She wrote:
Patti,
I have not been able to do this. I’ve thought about it every day since you offered us the challenge on your blog, but the thought of only having 37 days–it’s too much to contemplate. My best friend in all the world, Connie, died of lung cancer 12 years ago. I know what her last 37 days were like. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy and certainly not on anyone I loved. I wouldn’t put my sons or my mother and father or my brother or my dear, dear, dear Scott through that for anything.
But if we put a lot of fantasy into it and pretend I would be able to do something, well, I’d work for about half of it. I love my job and I love the people I work for. I would get as many things settled and filed and straightened and taken care of as I could. I’d let them take me to lunch and fuss over me. All I ever wanted was to be "special" and to be helpful. This job lets me be special by being helpful–a perfect combination. I would miss my beloved physicists terribly.
I would spend time with the lovely Leanna. The second best friend I’ve ever had. I would give her my beads. And Susie. My best friend in second grade. I would give her back her mother’s necklace that she gave to me. I loved her mother almost more than my own.
And I would spend hours and hours and hours in the arms of my beloved Scott. And I would cry and cry and cry. No ebullience–not at the thought of how much pain this would cause him. Not knowing how short our time has been together–how late we found each other. The thought of leaving him comfortless is beyond comprehension. I know this kind of devotion and need are not much accepted in this day and age. But there it is. We are who we are. And we are totally devoted. I don’t suppose there are more things I would do. I would not change much of who I am because time is short. I pretty much do the best I can now.
-Laura Walters
The two parts of this couple both wrote, not knowing the other had.
From them, I learned that others share my fears, that I can liberate myself from those fears, that we all need to find someone special to give our beads to, that we should be proud of being totally devoted.
And that we’re all of us pretty much doing the best we can now.
My thanks to Scott and Laura. Life is a Verb will be hand delivered. Let’s pick a time and place. We can grab a coffee and eat some wheat-free, vegan, free-trade, organic spelt scones and bother the mimes at the corner of Haywood and Battery Park and be utterly and completely ebullient.
If you’d like to answer the question, "What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?", email it to me with your mailing address and a photo. Those essays posted before the official publication date of Life is a Verb on September 2nd will receive a signed copy of the book!
