7 days to live

Imagine if you were given one week to live.  You are healthy and in the prime of your life at the time you get the news.  You are surrounded by people who love you and you have a high quality life, perhaps you even drive a Mercedes convertible.  You are responsible for others both in your career and in your family, maybe you have a young child.  You get the news to put your affairs in order.  Life changes instantly.  You look around, as if for the first time.  You see what you have.  You realize that it's not the surroundings but who you're surrounded by.  You tell people that you don't feel like you'd expect you'd feel when you get that kind of news.  You tell people you understand better people who are dying and act like they are living forever.  You recognize you're in shock.   You are more worried about the people in your life than you are your own.  You say your own burden is for a week, but the families is for a lifetime.  You are too intelligent and too aware.  You covet the ability to sleep at night.  Your significant other takes a week off to spend it with you and your child and everything looks the same and everything looks different.  You have to continue with medical tests, which mars any chance of trying to be normal.  You find out you are perfectly healthy in every way but one.  You don't even feel sick.  You tell people and you wonder if you're doing the right thing.  Who do I tell you wonder.  You realize that some of your friends are big, mushy, emotional criers and some are very pragmatic.  The pragmatic ones are the ones you like talking to most.  You start to realize how fortunate you are to have the people in your life that you do.   You have conversations with some that you can't have with your partner.  Your partner needs to believe it's going to be different and you respect that need.  You start to prepare your child in small ways.  You contact their friends parents and ask for help and you plan to contact the school to let them know what's ahead for their new student.  A close family member is expecting a baby two weeks after you're gone and you plan to buy a baby gift and see the baby room, it tires you out to think about what needs to get done.  You start counting hours because there's more hours than days.  More hours than days...


(I'd rather never have known how to write the above.  My perspective on a very close loved one's recent experience.  The surgery is one week away from tomorrow.  Chances for life exist.  Chances that life will not look the same are high.  Chances that no life exists are possible. Precious hours.)