We get a better, more expansive view of the landscape when we climb to a mountain’s summit. The same happens when we approach the hour of our death, when we recognize what truly matters in life.
A new year invites us to set goals to improve our lives. At this time, I’m reminded of the work of a nurse, known as Laura M., who logged some 300 conversations with people before they died. By analyzing their words, she identified seven themes of what really matters in life. Generally speaking, people didn’t fear death, rather not having really lived.
These were the wise lessons these patients shared as they tumbled between life and death.
“I should have loved more … and in a different way.” We won the fight, but we lost a relationship. At the end, no one lamented not having been stronger, rather not having been more tender, more loving. They realized that love is not a secondary project; it’s the essential project of life, it’s what we yearn for and search for, it’s what fills us. “In the twilight of life, we will be judged on love,” as St. John of the Cross once said.
“I waited to be happy until later … and later never arrived.” Joy, happiness and eternity are experienced in the present, without the contamination of the past, nor the anxiety of the future. Every instant is filled with possibilities that we postpone. What we did not do in the here and now is gone.
“Forgiveness freed me more than oxygen.” Hate does not punish others; it poisons our life.
“The best things in life were free, and I was too busy to notice.” Strolling in the park, eating ice cream with the kids, walking on the sand, smelling a rose, lending a hand … we forget about “being” by “doing.” We confuse being busy with being alive.
“Regret is the heaviest burden to carry.” The memory of what should have been done and was not is one of the greatest pains that we can experience. Painkillers do not work in this emotional space.
“Presence is the greatest gift that we can give.” To see and be with another, to hear him or her, to lend a hand, to extend an embrace are contemporary luxuries. Distraction is the modern sickness of life.
“Peace comes when you stop pretending.” We spend a big chunk of our lives pretending, acting to be accepted and recognized, but when our bodies weaken, our masks fall off. In frailty, we discover our authentic self, the truth of what we are, and that acceptance frees us and returns us to peace, the oxygen of the soul.
Death does not come to steal our lives, but to remind us of their fragility and to teach us to love without a moment’s delay … That is what truly matters.
Ricardo Márquez can be reached at marquez_muskus@yahoo.com.
