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When my father died last month, it made me think more about death and dying.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I’ve gone through several phases with this now.

First was a certain disbelief. This was followed with just being numb. Then, I talked about it to the point that the emotion was overcome by the commonness of it.

It’s been a sad reality.

Not to be funny, but death is just so final. It’s the ultimate can’t-do-over.

It makes you not want to mess up. Every moment passes only once. The few seconds you just spent clicking here and reading to this point in this article will never happen again. You may have another similar experience–But, this moment is gone forever.

All this thinking about death and dying has brought me to a really weird, undesirable conclusion.

I would like to say we have a choice, but we don’t.

We will die one of two ways. Thus the title: Two ways to die.

I’m not talking about the method of death: some illness or physical calamity or failure. I’m talking about the general circumstance of death and dying.

I don’t like it, but here it is:

You will either watch everyone you know die, or, you will die first.

They can’t rightly be called options, but plainly stated: you’re either dying first or watching everyone else die. It isn’t any better when you flip it.

I guess the best of pain and living would be to die somewhere in the middle. Then you live a little longer and only have to watch half of everyone die.

This gets ridiculous fast.

The only real choice in the matter is about how we live. The death part doesn’t change. Even if you believe in life after death, that death part really sucks. And the part leading up to it isn’t that great either.

So make the most of what is good and worthy while you have it. It will be gone.

Hope for somewhere in the middle for dying. But change what you can control.

What can you control? All the life part you’re living right now.

Like, what are you going to do now–I mean, right now?

Click to another site? Email this to a friend as a sick joke? Post this to your own blog and spread a sick joke?

These are some of a million things you might do in the next few moments.

I hope that’s the best use of your next few moments. You sure wouldn’t want to waste them.

Hug your wife and kids. Hug your mom and dad. Eat out whenever you can.

Honor God and man with all that belongs to them. Prioritize some fun into your life. Take a trip. Plant a garden. Send a card.

Don’t keep doing anything that causes regret. Find a handle to overcome bad habits. Create a place for peace in your life. Think about good things.

Regards.

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Today marks one week since I watched my dad die.

I called mom again yesterday. We talked about how she was feeling and how the family back home was doing. She said she was going to clear out dad’s stuff. She just couldn’t bear it being around anymore. I told her she might want to give it a little time first. It would seem a shame to get rid of everything and then wish you had it back.

Then we chatted about her hobbies and things she could do now. I told her she should take the time to do things she had always wanted to do. I told her not to even give the slightest thought to expense. It didn’t matter to my brother or me if there was even one penny left. My brother and I both live just fine. She should take some time with a friend and travel the world–enjoy the things she always wanted to see and do.

I started naming places to visit and friends she could ask along for the trip. She had a reason not to consider each friend. She had a reason not to see each place. After a bit, when I had just about narrowed in on the perfect place, and the perfect friend, she started crying. She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she sobbed over the phone.

She sobbed, “I don’t want to go anywhere anymore. I don’t want to do anything. We always went everywhere together. I can’t imagine going anywhere without him.”

Well, now I had done it. What I wanted to be a consoling call from her son had turned into a painful reminder of lost love.

All the wonderful stories of puppy love, of first love, of happy ever after had lived out between my mom and dad. They would have completed fifty wonderful years together within just a year and a half. Now, suddenly, it was all over. We were at the fairy tale’s end. We had discovered the ‘after’ that follows ‘happily ever after.’

This wasn’t a romance gone sour. This wasn’t a wanton dream of forbidden fruit that had faded from hope. This wasn’t an ideal dreamed and forever out of reach. This was the romance. This was the dream. This was the fruit fully enjoyed. And now that it was lost, this was the greatest kind of lost love. This was a thing to savor, now gone, now stolen. What was left was the deepest emptiness one could fathom. A hole in the soul.

Mom’s soul mate was gone.

This last week has brought some things home to me. I have looked at my daughter with a new look. I have considered priorities with a new born arrangement. I have genuinely examined my wife from this new vantage and found that I love her all the more.

Let me challenge you to make every effort to bask in the relationships you have, while you have them. You are living each moment for the last time. Taste it. Smell it. Relish it with all the desperation of the deepest breath drawn at the surface of the water from a dive to the furthest reaches your consciousness would allow.

Know the time. Know the riches of this moment’s passing. Heap up the pleasure of being and of being known. Love one another.

Regards.

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