With six months to live, what would you do?

So, what if you only had six months to live? 

It’s amazing how we change the way we see things when that question is asked.  We’d spend more time with family, we’d take care of the business we haven’t made a priority. And yet once all is said and done, we go about our lives as if we will live to 97 and die because by then, that’s what we’re supposed to do.

Yesterday, a video went around on Facebook about a seventeen year old named Zach Sobiech who was diagnosed with cancer and how he lived the remainder of his life.  He died yesterday and my friend picked out this quote as his favorite, "I want to be known as the kid who went down fighting, but didn't really lose." - Zach Sobiech

You can watch the video here: Zach Sobiech

My husband and I had just been having the conversation of how I would live my life if I only had six months to live.  Seriously, like 15 minutes before I saw this video on my friend’s update.

I laughed and said there’d be a lot of traveling.  See, that’s not realistic in every-day-I’m-gonna-live-until-97 life.

I’d:

• go to Yosemite
• go to Capitola
• go to Disneyland
• but most importantly, I’d go to Africa and love on people by helping families devastated by HIV/AIDS and war. I can address the “why Africa” question in another post but for now, I’ll just say I have felt God place Africa on my heart since my late twenties.

For 15 years, Africa has been put on my “someday” list but if that six months deadline was in front of me, I’d be going.

See, that’s a lot of the six months time already booked with traveling.  If I did that in “real life” that would cost a lot of money and be frivolous.  So where is the balance?

It wouldn’t make sense for us to quit our jobs and spend all of our savings to do the things we’d do if we lived as if time was limited and resources were not.

Where is the balance? 

But to continue the list, I’d:

• Sing a solo in a musical
• have that last heart-to-heart with my family and friends trying to convince them of Jesus’s love for them
• write letters to my kids for occasions in their lives I want to be there for like graduations, wedding days, first heartbreaks
• let people in my life know how much they mean to me and how they have made me who I am
• make memories with my children and just love on them
• NOT feel guilty about the house being a mess or dinners out instead of cooked at home
• People, I would EAT whatever I wanted!!!

What about you?

would you reach out to someone who you have hurt or has hurt you?

visit that lost love that you’ve been trying to push to the back of your mind?

open your heart to someone you’ve been holding back from and tell them how much you love them?

write that book you’ve wanted to write but were too afraid to try?

Some things don’t work in the everyday life thing.  I can’t eat whatever I want. I’d be uncomfortable and unhealthy and since I DON’T know when or how I will go, I need to take care of myself.

But some things do work and it shouldn’t have to take pulling the, “I’ve got a brain tumor” card to make things happen.

Where is the balance?

How about picking one or two things on your list and working on them?

I’m happy to say that I have a solo in an upcoming musical and I’m gonna enjoy the heck out of the process. I’m working my darndest to get my special people in my life together so I can show them my appreciation and if it can’t happen with all of them together at one time, they’re just going to have to settle for my appreciation on a individual daily level.  I can write letters for my children that they can open on those special occasion days.

I’m happy to say that by doing the “My Rocks in a Jar” goals for this year, if I did find out that I only had six months to live, I have quite a few important things already on the calendar that I would keep.  Doing the musical which includes time with some of my very special people, family camp in the redwoods with my husband and children which happens to not be far from Capitola, we have an annual pass to National Parks which means Yosemite is a definite possibility even for just a day.  I spend time with my friends each week and try to let them know how much they mean to me.  The husband and I plan more dates now.

And what about once you are gone? What do you need to do to make sure you are loving people in how you leave things? 

Don’t forget to get your life insurance taken care of and put your will in order. Make time for the important conversations or live out your love with what you do in your life.  When you are gone, how do you want to be remembered? 

Go out today and live that life.  Because the reality is, there is a date out there that has your name on it.  We just don’t know which date it is.

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO DO BEFORE YOU GO? WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY TO GET THAT GOING?