Today I worked for a cou­ple of hours and decid­ed to take the rest of the day off.  I have so much on my mind…

 I use oth­er peo­ple’s expe­ri­ences, both good and bad to reflect on my own life and what I can and should be doing bet­ter.  This week we lost two real­ly young fam­i­ly mem­bers (a 36 year old hus­band and father and a teenage boy), days apart, to can­cer. This is high­ly trag­ic, and incred­i­bly unjust…to lose not one, but two peo­ple, days apart to such an awful dis­ease and at such a young age.

So today, I am in a unique think­ing mode. Sad­ly, I do not know them very well. We are fam­i­ly, but we nev­er spent time togeth­er. This is ter­ri­ble, I know.  How many of us have rel­a­tives we just don’t see, for what­ev­er rea­son?  I think the last time I saw one of my first cousins was over the sum­mer, at a wed­ding.  How unfor­tu­nate is this?  

The first ques­tion that comes to mind is why is this so and how can I fix it. Sure, we are all busy.  But some­times we are busy being busy.  If some­one invit­ed you to the upcom­ing Super Bowl, paid your tick­et and all expens­es, I’m sure you’d find the time. So why is get­ting togeth­er for din­ner at a dear uncle’s house so impos­si­ble?  Do we real­ly want to catch up at funer­als?

The sec­ond thought is more quan­ti­ta­tive:  If some­thing were to hap­pen to me today, will my fam­i­ly be okay, finan­cial­ly?  Will they be able to spend their ener­gy on cop­ing with their loss with­out hav­ing to think about costs, flow­ers and oth­er funer­al arrange­ments?

I urge every­one to take a sheet of paper or bet­ter yet, cre­ate an Excel sheet and orga­nize your affairs.  Life insur­ance is the first on the list, and then comes oth­er sav­ings and invest­ments.  Select your ben­e­fi­cia­ries.  If you have prop­er­ty, cars, a home, a com­put­er, every asset you own, write it down, be clear on what you would like your fam­i­ly to do with your per­son­al belong­ings.  Do you have keep­sakes you know your sis­ter or broth­er should have?

What about your social media, friends or email?  Keep a list of accounts with user­names and pass­words so that your loved ones can access them.  Leave instruc­tions.  Update your infor­ma­tion often and add details as soon as you can, but start with some­thing sim­ple, just to get going.   Send this list to 2–3 peo­ple as a ref­er­ence, and des­ig­nate a per­son of con­tact, prefer­ably some­one who is real­ly respon­si­ble and trust­wor­thy. This is just to start the process, not to decide. You decide what you want to hap­pen.

Do you care what you wear, do you want to be cre­mat­ed or buried?  Are you reli­gious?  If you are in your dying bed, do you want to be bap­tized?  Do you want to get mar­ried under the church (I know this is a com­mon one) if you haven’t done so already?  God will­ing, you will have the chance to do these things pri­or, but the truth is, we don’t know when or how we will go, but one thing is for cer­tain, it will hap­pen one day.  So stay pre­pared.  Stay at peace.  Get bap­tized now, get mar­ried under the church and God now, if that is what you val­ue.

 I will not spend too much time on health because God takes all when He is ready for us.  But I do believe that if we treat our flesh with kind­ness, love and respect, that our bod­ies will take care of us back.  Per­haps you’re a donor.  Per­haps you want to give life, once it’s tak­en from you.  If this is impor­tant to you, then take care of your body.  Take care of your spir­it, your mind and your body by nour­ish­ing it with love, peace, and healthy nutri­tion.

Last­ly, how do you make sure you don’t live life with regrets?  How are you liv­ing today?  Are you doing your very best?  How do you treat oth­ers?  Have you made right by any­one you’ve caused harm?  Are you at peace?  Have you told and showed your loved ones how much they mean to you?  Do this dai­ly.  Are you tru­ly liv­ing an excep­tion­al life?  Or are you wait­ing for the mor­row?

Tomor­row is not promised and God does not dis­crim­i­nate.  The old, the young, the poor, the wealthy, the kind, the mean, the ambi­tious and goal ori­ent­ed and the lazy and lost all die.  God does not dis­crim­i­nate.

Do what makes you hap­py.  I know this sounds like such a cliche but hon­est­ly, do what makes you hap­py.  If you enjoy sit­ting at a busy cafe and post­ing a blog (as I’m cur­rent­ly doing), then do that.  If watch­ing your chil­dren run and play makes you hap­py, then spend more time doing that.  If danc­ing, read­ing, or cart­wheel­ing brings you joy, then do that.

 Fix your rela­tion­ships, don’t wait a sec­ond to make things right.  Apol­o­gize, if you’ve harmed some­one, and be sin­cere about it. Ask God for for­give­ness, every day and live each day not putting out fires or cor­rect­ing wrong doings and instead, live in cruise-con­trol. Be at peace know­ing that every day you are doing your best. Every day you are feel­ing grate­ful and every day you are ask­ing for for­give­ness for sins you may have caused.

Enter the new world know­ing that your loved ones are tak­en care of, that they know how you feel about them, and that you lived your life with pas­sion. Have zero regrets in life. Once you start liv­ing like this, you will find that a life full of joy, com­pas­sion, empa­thy and love is not as impos­si­ble as it seems.

 So today, my fam­i­ly and friends, give thanks for your good health and your heart beat.  Nev­er take a sin­gle breath for granted…May God bless you always…

 Warmest Regards,

Irís