Living Like It Was My Last Day--Part II

Back in November, I published a post about living each day like it was my last. (11/28/13)  That was really about doing things on my "bucket list"--those things I've known for a long time that I wanted to do before I died.  Earlier this week (3/11) I wrote about not putting off those things that we yearn to do.  I firmly believe in the importance of doing those things in life, and I regret that time seems to pass so quickly that whole years pass in a blink without more of them happening.

Last night's movie viewing started me thinking about living each day like it was my last in a different way.  If this happened to be the last day of my life, what regrets would I want to fix?  Who would I want to forgive? What frayed relationships would I want to mend? To whom would I want to say "I love you?"  To whom would I want to thank or express gratitude?  This train of thought opens a whole new set of possibilities of living without regret. 

I've often wondered why it is that people who haven't spoken to each other for decades wait until their final days of life to mend fences and express regrets.  Of how many hours or days of joy have they robbed themselves?  Why is it that all those years during which the pride was so hard to swallow, but when the end is near, those are the people that they want to see, to touch, and to love again?

I have someone who was very special to me for the first 20 years of my life.  I have only seen her incidentally two or three times since then.  We started talking by phone again 10 years or so ago.  I would really love to see her again.  I would crawl on my hands and knees halfway across the country to see her again, but when I've asked she says, "No."  While I know I am responsible for the frayed relationship in the first place, I ache that my olive branches have been spurned.  She is much older than I, and each time we speak I hope that she doesn't die before I see her. 

As I reflect upon it, there are people that have been special to me and with whom I don't have frayed relationships, but as we've moved around the country, I've just lost touch.  If this were the last day of my life, I'd like to have one last conversation, a good laugh, and one final hug. In these days of the Internet and Skype, there is no reason for me not to have that conversation and laugh, although the hug will be a bit more challenging.  Facebook has given us the illusion that if we connect as "friends," we are really connected, but Facebook knows nothing about an afternoon laughing and spinning stories together over coffee.

In the last 15 hours or so since I've been thinking about this other side of the "last day," I've also thought about unspoken or under-spoken gratitude.  It is funny how people have just popped into my mind that I haven't thought about for decades.  I don't know why, but my high school government teacher has just been hovering there.  I would love to thank her for the passion she instilled in me for government watching.  I went on to major in political science, and politics-watching has been my favorite indoor sport for all of my adulthood...and probably before.  I remember impassioned debates with my father, lingering at the dinner table, when I was still in school.  I don't know if she's even still alive, but I think it is time to reach out. 

I think, too, about nameless people to whom I will be eternally grateful, like that college advisor that suggested that he thought I might find another career more satisfying than accounting, a potential job I'd selected because I thought it would always be secure.  After all, we always need accountants, no matter what the economy is.  EEK!  While I completely value those who do this work, it is mostly so I don't have to do it.  I am sure I would have slit my wrists in a few short months.

Writing this blog seems to have the effect of causing me to start a lot of lists, and while I don't always make it through all of them, the intention gets me started.  Sometimes I do make it through the whole list after a few months: this list seems too important not to write.