Sam's Online Journal

“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” ~Corazon Aquino

I realized this past week that I can die, and I don’t mean in the sense that anyone who is born will eventually die, but in the sense that a bus can hit me tomorrow and I could be gone. It wouldn’t matter how young I am, or how fit I am, or even how many people love and cherish me. Once my time comes it comes, and while I’d rather it be sixty years from now when I die in my sleep it could honestly be tomorrow, and what do I have to show for my life to this point?

When I got married my wife insisted that we have a lawyer draft our wills. I had never thought about my worldly possessions before. I mean, I owned an old Ford Probe that worked half of the time, a VCR that was completely broken, and a bevy of CDs, books, and video tapes that were probably worth a fourth of what I paid for them when they were new. But my wife explained it well enough for even me to get. It wasn’t about what I owned right now, my physical property. It was about preparing for life after my death, about naming beneficiaries, about life insurance funds, and about making sure my final wishes would be carried out.

In other words, it was really heavy stuff. Concrete even. And as we sat in his office, our lawyer outlined everything for us in black and white, how things would go in the event of my death, untimely or not. When he said the word “untimely” I wondered if a death was ever timely, if it ever really was just someone’s time to go, or if even then it was untimely. I spent the time thinking of those things instead of dwelling on the inevitable, that at some point the only pieces of me left in this world will be memories and experiences, and even those will fade in time.

How do I live a meaningful life where what I do makes a difference in other people’s lives, so that when I die my spirit will live on through positive memories? Continue reading “A Meaningful Death”