Reflections on Mortality

I got a call a few minutes ago that nearly made my heart stop.

One of my colleagues in Part Deux of the company called to tell me that one of the sales representatives for a vendor we regularly use came through his brain surgery okay, but the tumor the doctors were convinced was benign came back positive for a malignant Stage IV brain tumor.

*SILENCE*

He's thirtysomthing, married, with three small children. Not someone whom I should be getting "the call" about. I don't know him well. In fact, there are people at XYZ who know him much better than I. But it didn't soften the blow any. It didn't stop me from saying, "but he's so young!"

I think, more than anything, it caused me to take a 30-second look at my own mortality. Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with an illness I will have for the rest of my life. It is more inconvenient (with sporadically painful episodes) than anything - it means I can't donate blood, but other than that it doesn't mean much more than the multiple days of sick leave I had to use. But it very well could have been a diagnosis that changed the course of the rest of my (and, by extension, Himself's,) life. It could have been cancer or MS or Parkinson's or any number of medical labels that make someone say, "but (s)he's so young!" It wasn't. But it could have been.

And that's what made "the call" so horrifying. It could have been about me. It could have been about Himself. It could have been about a good friend, my parents, a sibling. It made me think about Life for a few minutes - wondering if I was really spending my life the way I wanted/needed to. There is still so much to do, so much to learn, so much progress to be made.

I believe in life after death. It's the only thing that consoled me after the sudden loss of my beloved grandmother last summer. I know that my marriage to Himself is forever. But I haven't finished what I'm supposed to do in this life yet.

I want to grow old with Himself and our furture children. I want to learn to paint, play the guitar, throw wonderful dinner parties, understand the Book of Isaiah. I want to write a book, travel Europe, sail into port at Palma de Majorca, visit all 50 states, own a home, drive cross-country, get a Master's degree ... I could go on forever.

I am sure that our vendor is thinking thoughts like that , regardless of the end prognosis. I don't think it is the life that you've lived that flashes before your eyes, as much as the life you haven't lived. There is too much of my life ahead of me for calls like that.

Facing your own mortality is a very sobering thing.