LIFE AND DEATH

We received a diagnosis that our dog Buddy has a tumor attached to his heart.
The vet is fairly certain it is cancer.

Buddy is a chocolate lab and is approximately 9 years old now. We adopted him when he was 6, so we have had him a fairly short time. We got the news yesterday and were quite distressed by it, of course. All those things that we used to feel irritated by seem very insignificant now.

Why is it that we act as if we’ll live forever and the moment we hear a diagnosis of something that will eventually kill us, we change our perspective and feel very sad about it?

Often, we alter how we treat the person or behave around them due to knowing they have a disease that is going to take their life. Suddenly, we realize how important they are to us (or not).
It becomes imperative we spend more time with them, because they have an expiration date now.

THE TRUTH IS WE ALL HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE!
(the physical does anyway)

We probably all don’t receive a terminal diagnosis of something that makes us present to our own mortality, but we are all dying from the moment we took our very first breath as a human.

Why do we behave different towards someone just because they’ve been told they have some disease?

Depending on your belief, we may live forever in another form, so maybe it doesn’t really matter how we live here. Possibly this is true too.

My point is we live in this human form for a limited amount of time.
None of us know when the expiration date is, unless we are enlightened in this way.
Yet, we act as if the physical body is eternal.

Back to Buddy, he has a diagnosis of this big C word.
As much as I want to tell you I’m totally accepting of this, I am not.
I can feel this app that is running in the background: worry and waiting…

We are taking measures to make him comfortable and hopefully put this disease in remission so he can live longer.
Why? The selfish part of being human wants him to be here with us longer.
The logical spiritual part tells me, if it is his time it is his time, no matter what we do to attempt to alter the outcome.

This is TRUE for every single one of us.

Buddy was given a diagnosis.
We don’t know the when.

Now we live in fear that his end time is near.
It could be any one of us that our expiration date is approaching. Who really knows? I certainly don’t.

Personally, I feel like I have a long time left here and a lot to do while I am here, but I don’t actually know this for certain. It is my feeling.

Why do I treat life different when I’ve been told I or you have some terminal disease?
What would happen if I simply lived each day, each moment as if it were my last, so to speak?
How would I live?
Would I live differently than I do right now?

WHAT IS THE GIFT I RECEIVE BY HAVING OR KNOWING SOMEONE THAT HAS A RECEIVED A DIAGNOSIS?

Do I do anything different?
How can I live fully present to my life?
At the heart of you, WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT IN LIFE?

I belive most of us want to be happy and love and feel loved.

My musings of life and death.

I can tell you it is why I do the mentor coaching I do. I am committed to doing something different on the inside of me, so I can love me from the inside out. Meaning, I get to live fully present, fully self-expressed and fully loving and compassionate.

Now, I am here to help others love themselves from the inside out, so they can live and love their lives and have what they truly want!

Marti Hicks-Forrest