memento mori (2)

A friend of mine - some 15 years my junior - is diagnosed with stadium 3/4 cancer. I know a bit about his family. He has two small kids, the eldest is some 7 years or so. I am wondering what would one think if a doctor is telling them that the chance to live until ripe age is rather small.  I doubt that my friend would think that back in 1950 the life expectancy of Indonesian is around 40. Hence we would likely beat that odd back then. But of course now that the life expectancy is around 72 the diagnose would discourage him. 

We all are going to die someday somehow. But we typically do not put this fact into perspective. Unless people had been ill for sometime we  assume that everybody dies unexpectedly. We would say: we met so and so just last week, or even last couple days ago and now so and so already passed away. Oh how fragile life is? But we forgot that once started life would end sooner or later.

I guess we all know that death is part of the picture when we react to the news that someone passes away ay say 99 years old. We think that it is normal for someone that old to die. We would typically wonder if the person was already weaken or even sick. We knew that this mortal body of ours has expiry date written somewhere. 

However dying at 'relatively' young age would be tragedy. We would ask about the potential that has not been fulfilled, about the young children of this person etc. But of course in nature such thing happens. 

We do not know when that time would happen to us but we know it would happen.   
Remember how precious your time really is.

Don’t hide from it. Embrace it.
Let it motivate and inspire you.
Let it be a call to action.
Memento Mori.