Random thoughts about death

My cousin died last week, his funeral was yesterday.

We weren't close.  He was 11 years older than I am, would have turned 40 in June.  

He'd been on antibiotics for a cold or something mild, but other than that he was fine.  He was young and healthy and he just died one night, in his sleep.  Absolutely shocking.

The funeral was very emotional.  His wife is only 4 years older than I am, and I felt so terribly for her...

Like I said, we weren't close.  In fact, much of the service yesterday could have been for a stranger, I knew very little about him.  Still, it was sobering.  Especially because he was SO young.

It makes you think about death - NOT something I like to ponder on a regular basis.  

A friend of mine, when I told him about my cousins passing, said he was 'painfully aware of how short life is.'

I would say I'm also painfully aware of how short life is.  After all, there's nothing like having children to show you how quickly time really does fly by.  Tessa will be 7 in less than 3 months.  I can remember bringing her home from the hospital.  How can 7 years have passed since then?

The saying is to 'live each day like it's your last".  The Tim McGraw song is "Live Like You Were Dying"

I don't know if either is a good idea.

If I were to live each day like it was my last, I would do a lot of things that I shouldn't.  

• I wouldn't send Tessa to school
  
• I wouldn't let Matt go to work
  
• I wouldn't work out - waste of time!
  
• I wouldn't clean my house - another waste of time!
  
• I would eat everything I love, and lots of it
  
• I would spend all my money, buying and doing things I couldn't really afford
  

Less dramatically, if I were living like I was close to the end, I'd never yell at Tessa to clean her room, I'd just do it for her (assuming it was still important to me.) I wouldn't be financially responsible - my mortgage is expensive!  What's a missed payment when you're dying?  I wouldn't tell Asher 'no' when he asked to watch another Mickey...who cares if too much TV rots his brain - I don't want him remembering me as a mean mommy!

I think the point of those sayings is not to die with regrets.  To focus on what's really important. The problem is that there are a lot of little things, like clean bedrooms and bills that are paid on time, that aren't necessarily 'what's really important'...but are part of life.  

There must be a happy medium somewhere.  To spend as much time as possible with the people you love, doing the things you love to do...but also to be a responsible adult, planning for the future...

I guess it's just remembering to do the former, while not getting overly caught up in the latter. Tricky.  

The day after my cousin died I called Matt at work, just because I needed to hear his voice. Within minutes, I was crying into the phone..."what if you died!?"

And poor Matt, busy at work, tried to joke with me "you're not getting rid of me that easy! I'm not going anywhere!"

To which I replied "but you could. There was nothing wrong with him, and he just died"

And poor Matt knew then that he couldn't make me laugh and be off the hook, but he had work to do, so he just said "I know baby. It's okay. I love you, I'll see you tonight."

And then he got back to the responsible adult part of life.  He's one of the most responsible people I know - never shirks a job, never does anything halfway.  But he's very good at being very loving.  I know that the kids and I never doubt how much he loves us.

So maybe it's not that tricky.