Nowadays, I hear, “…We are all born to die…” and I am not real sure if people take the time to think through how defeatist, deterministic, and fatalistic that sounds. From the miracle of conception through a nine month gestation, and then the painful ordeal of birth only to…..DIE? I cannot help but believe that something important, something of great importance occurs between birth and death…….and that is LIFE!

If it is an attempt to show a bond, a sense of solidarity between one who is dying and one who is living but wants to be categorized at ‘potentially dying’ then even that does not bridge the gap of the distance of the differences that exists between us. I will respect your living if you respect my dying.

“I will respect your living if you respect my dying.”

Carl J. Mistlebauer

NO! We are born to LIVE! To experience, to grow, to celebrate, to struggle…To wonder, to experience, to hope, to explore, to fight, to fail, to worry….To feel the utter darkness of sadness, the absolute emptiness of loss, to taste that unforgetable bitterness of failure and to be overwhelmed when faced with defeat. To live, TO. TOTALLY. LIVE. WITH. ALL. THE. LIFE. YOU. CAN. MUSTER. That is why you were born!

I am not sad that I am dying for I have lived and my fervent wish is for you to live….TOTALLY!