“Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

What was that country song?  ”I went sky diving; I went Rocky Mountain climbing…live like you are dying.”  This past year has been one where many friends have been touched by loss.  I suppose the fact that I am not as young as I used to be might factor into this phenomenon.  As we age, we find that we are confronted with our mortality more and more often.  Death no longer is some mythological creature that lurks in the shadows of the future.  Instead, we become aware that Death is a traveling companion who shares the road with us and one day will overtake us.

It may sound a bit backward, but I have discovered that the people who seem to live life most fully are those who embrace the awareness that one day they, too, will die.  When I was young, I would run from any talk about dying.  I remember crying bitter tears when my elderly great-aunt would say, “you know, I won’t live forever.”  ”No!” I would shout through my sobs, “you’re never going to die!”  But, of course, she did.  When I look back on our time together, I am thankful that she said those difficult words at a time when I could not accept them.  The memory of my own reaction and her matter-of-fact attitude comes together with the experiences of my own life and shows me that ignoring our mortality does not make us live longer or better lives.  Instead, it can create a sort of indifference about the value of our existence that makes us lazy about the way we use our days.

Have you ever met someone who had a terminal disease?  Have you noticed the passion with which they choose to live the shortened life they still possess?  Country songs tell us to live like we are dying.  Movies like the Bucket List portray people ramping up their desire to do all the things they have put off doing, just because there seemed to be no hurry.  Can you imagine how much more life we might live if we kept Death close and embraced his existence as our traveling companion?  Perhaps if we can accept our own mortality and look Death in the eye, we also can embrace what a gift it is to be alive.  Then, perhaps, we will live each day completely and not waste a minute.  It is through overcoming our fear of dying that we also stop being afraid to live.  Today we are given 86,400 minutes to be alive.  What do you plan to do with yours?