Making the Days Count

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” Mark Twain

As those of you that read my essays are all too aware, I am that anomaly among the Scot/Irish in that rather than being concise I tend to be wordy, even to the extreme of verbosity at times. This being the case, I often generate what I would consider good ideas, or a written stream (in some cases a steaming pile) of thought that I have great difficulty parting with. Editing, revisions, rewrites all require an author to extract, delete, and sometimes even violently remove the resistant pieces of otherwise good composition. Renowned writer Stephen King referred to it as, “killing one’s darlings.” I say all this to confess that I keep many of these; some, well, are just too good to throw away, and I certainly don’t think I need to “kill” them.

The preceding can all be considered as sort of a preamble, and now that that is out of the way, we may proceed forward. The following words were originally part of a eulogy I wrote about eight months ago. I had intended to speak them at a dear friend’s funeral, but I ended up removing them from that tribute for the sake of brevity. But, as I pointed out earlier, I thought they were good and saved them from the furnace. A few weeks ago, I exhumed them and included them as a section in the recently published essay titled, Death and Introspection, but once again I had to remove them. These words, though amputated from any living essay, would not be still; for months I listened to their soft chatter, like something ethereal they have been incessantly running in the background of my thoughts, and it was evident that they needed to be made public.

This morning as I turned to kiss my wife goodbye, I was suddenly reminded of these words and accompanying them was a very abrupt and disturbing query. It wasn’t so much the words in the question, but rather the question’s construction.

“If today is your last, how will you live it?”

I was taken aback, because saying things this way is not my norm. If I were asking myself that question, I wouldn’t have worded it indicatively, as if it is going to happen, but rather subjunctively: “If today were my last, how would I live it?” Do you see the difference? Again, it was disturbing to hear the question phrased that way and there it was, with all its sharp edges inside my brain as if it were a challenge or possibly prophetic.

“If today is your last, how will you live it?”

I held Dona close and looked deep into her eyes. I wanted to make sure that she saw my love for her just in case it was a prophecy. I kissed her goodbye as those words reverberated in my mind.

“If today is your last, how will you live it?”

Even now, days later, that query chills me. So, after two inclusions and two subsequent omissions from other writings, the persistent, near daily reminders, plus this day’s not so gentle memento mori[i], I figured I’d take the hint (more like a demand) and post them.

There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. A year contains 365 days. I am 62 years old which means I have lived 22,630 days. If I live an average lifespan of 75 years, which is 27,375 days, I only have 4745 days left on this planet. It kind of brings things into perspective, doesn’t it? That isn’t much time to get this thing called life right.

I have been considering the idea of filling a jar with 4745 beans to represent those days I have left. Every morning, I would remove one of those beans from the jar and place it in my pocket. I would carry the bean with me throughout the day to remind me that the day was a gift, and I am responsible for that day. How will I interact with others? Will I show patience and kindness when dealing with those I meet? Will I display the love of Christ to every single person I encounter?

At the end of the day, I would place that day’s “spent” bean in a separate jar. As time passes the “spent” jar would become fuller, while the once filled jar is depleted. It would be a constant reminder of just how precious every single day really is and how rapidly this time we have here comes to an end.

I have heard people say that we should live every day like it is our last, and I agree. We never know when that last day will arrive, and it may indeed be today. There is an average of 104 deaths per minute, 6,250 per hour, and 150,000 per day. Some will not see today’s sunset, while others will not see the sunrise tomorrow. We should live today, every day, as if it is the last day we have, but we must live it selflessly, giving our life for others.

Though the primary motivation for publishing these words was meant to free myself from their nattering, what I find is now that these words have been extracted from my skull and cast upon paper, they are no longer inanimate, but life has been breathed into them. Every time I read them, they take on a deeper meaning, and the richness of their message is made clearer with that accompanying query,

“If today is your last, how will you live it?”

These words should cause each of us to quake, to awaken us because they are indeed prophetic——today is that day for someone out there, a person that we know, one that we love, it could be you or me. My prayer for us is that our eyes are opened, this blindness of self-centeredness and the illusion of immortality are both shattered and our way be illuminated before us.

“If today is your last, how will you live it?”

C. Klingle

[i] Latin, “remember you must die.”