What Would It Take to Make You Appreciate the Precious Moments of Your Life?
Illustration by McClain Moore for AJN.
Imagination vs. reality.
Who hasn’t thought about it from time to time, the sudden grim diagnosis, the force of the realization that all that time you thought you had to live, love, learn, explore, and change may really be finite after all? Who hasn’t wondered what you would do with the remaining time if that happened—and by corollary, what you should be doing differently now?
But that’s all in the mind and imagination. The real clarifying shock of such an experience remains out of reach for most of us—until it happens.
Collecting experiences ‘like Mario connecting coins.’
This month’s Reflections essay, “The Last One,” is by Fran Wiedenhoeft, a former nurse anesthetist in the military. In it, she describes her own reaction after she found herself, at a relatively young age, facing just such a diagnosis.
In the two weeks before the surgery . . . I threw myself with frantic determination into collecting lasts: last long run . . . , last trip to the zoo, last potato peeled, last kiss, last caress. . . . Rather than enjoying each precious moment and every last experience, I was rushing […]
