Armchair Zen

A day like any other. Oh yeah, my birthday.

This is my last “teen” Birthday day. Next year I’ll break 20,000. Well, if I make it that far.

Had lunch with my Dad. Cool thing to do on your birthday!

Interestingly enough, this year he broke 30,000 days, somewhere around the middle of March, at age 82.13.

This year I’m thinking about mortality.

Not morbid mortality, “Oh, I’m gonna die”-like, but the natural occurrence, e.g. “Nothing lasts forever”.

I’ve been thinking “What if this is your last spring?”

We never know, do we?

What if this is the last time you’ll experience May, smell the lilacs, see the fields growing greener each day?

Suppose this is the last June to see peonies and smell new-mown grass and watch young calves frolic?

How will you feel about the way you used— or ignored— the spring, the summer, each day of your life if you got “the news” tomorrow?

The news that this would indeed be the last year to see the fall foliage, to smell the dry leaves crunching underfoot.

Will you appreciate more your baby granddaughter, just learning to recognize you? (..or rather, sense recognition of her father’s eyes on a..similar face)

Will you drink in every moment with your beautiful children, drown in their laughter, embrace them more heartily?

Must you truly wait for someone to give you a date? A deadline, so-to-speak?

I can tell you now and guarantee it. You will die.

There it is in black and white. Indisputable fact. Go ahead and get a second opinion.

Then open your heart and eyes and try to treat tomorrow and every day thereafter… like your last May.

Be at peace,

Paz