How’s Your Life So Far?

 

I spent the last week in Wisconsin hanging out with my 80-year old parents (well, to be completely fair, my mom doesn’t turn 80 until January).  Mom’s total knee replacement surgery a week ago today, was the impetus for my visit. Although my parents didn’t really NEED me there, it was nice to experience the ups and downs of the surgery and the complications that followed, together. In the process, we did a lot of remembering, shared our “bucket lists”, and did some reflection on life itself. I returned to Des Moines last night with heightened sensitivity to how precious life is,  and how quickly it goes by.

Today, while reading a magazine at my doctor’s office and still thinking about my visit to WI, I came across these words:

“Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, “So, what did you think?” (Stephen Wright)

I wondered what I would say when I’m 80.  I also wondered what I would say about my life so far.

Dawna Markova, one of my favorite authors,  wrote a poem, “I Will Not Die An Unlived Life”, the night her father died. As she says in the first chapter of her book, “His heart was hollow and vacant of dreams. He was convinced he didn’t matter.” Dawna felt differently.  I like her resolve and want to apply it into my life:

 

I Will Not Die An Unlived Life

 I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible;

to loosen my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance,

to live so that which came to me as seek

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came ot me as blossom,

goes on as fruit.

 

 What about you? What do you think you’ll say about about your life when you’re 80? What about NOW? How’s  your life so far? 

By Vicki Vanderkwaak on September 24, 2013   /   Coaching Relationship  

Tags: life reflection, living the life you want, making room for important things, questions to ask, self-awareness