LIFE

Life. We often hear sayings like “Carpe Diem” or “Live every day as if it was your last one” without really turning them into facts. But sometimes things happen and make you stop and think.

I was at my office, few years ago. I was talking with a patient as old as me. Very young. Physically he was like me. His life was similar than mine. He was speaking like me. I had the sensation of being in front of a mirror.
But this guy had cancer, and doctors had given him just months of living. Even this deadline is used to be wrong, we can’t deny that people have it in their mind. He had been told, and he had accepted it already. He was tired of living in worry.

After talking to him, and helping him devising a plan to live using as much as possible the time remaining, I thought “tomorrow it might be me the one feeling sick, going to the doctor, and being told that I have cancer and that I’m in the last times of me life”. If it happened to that man, why couldn’t it happen to me? 

And I stopped repeating constantly “Carpe Diem”, and I began to apply it. I started living according to a mantra: If this might be the last normal day of my life, I want it to be a good day. I want to try to do only things that give me meaning. Helping people with cancer to feel better with themselves. Helping people to help themselves. Hugging my friends, each time, as if it was the last time. Laughing as a child in front of the tiny triviality.

Lived experiences are the only thing we will take away to the other side when we die. That’s why it is important to take advantage of our time to accumulate this experiences. The ones we want. The ones we can. As long as we can.

What give a meaning to my life, right now, is helping people who suffer because of a cancer.

And if an unfortunated chance stops me and I’m defeated, bring all my songs and a bouquet of red roses to those I loved that much when we win the combat (Lluís Llach).