“At the end of our lives we all ask, did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?”
Brendon Burchard
***Any and all sensitive and identifying details and patient information have been removed or altered with respect to privacy***
When I entered the house of a dead man, it felt as if the world itself had stopped, as if the moment I stepped into that cramped basement apartment the world beyond kept going and while the world inside stood perfectly still.
It was a time capsule stuck in the past.
No one had heard from this gentleman in two days, and by the time his neighbor came to check on him, it was too late.
We found him on the carpeted floor of his living room, his walker and armchair overturned beside him during what had been the final battle of his life. Now his life was over, and we knew by the rigor mortis and dependent lividity that there was no point in attempting resuscitation. We were far too late, and while that was not our fault, it nonetheless felt disheartening standing there with four heavy bags of advanced emergency medical equipment, drugs, and a cardiac monitor worth more than a new car, all powerless against the reality of too late. I will never forget what his face looked like. Neither will I forget how his little world stood still…
The lights were all on, as if someone was home. Shoes in the anteroom, newspaper rolled up beside them, and a leather jacket and trilby hat on the hook. Frozen in time.
The television screen was on, Netflix paused with a show ready to play, only he was no longer there to watch it.
The kitchen still had food on the counter, letters and medications and odds and ends, all left behind. A lottery ticket, the last he would buy. A note with an address scribbled on it. A coffee machine with grounds still in the filter. A box of honey nut cheerios, half empty. A cellphone with several missed calls.
His bedroom was dark but for the warm glow of the lamp on his bedside table, still on in anticipation of an owner who would no longer need it. And on that table, too, a weathered book he had been reading, a page marked and many pages still unread.
A few days ago he was there. But the day came when the sun rose without him, and his world had gone still. That house was a time capsule of his final days on this earth. It was a testament to his existence, and now in his absence, it was a small fraction of the world that had stopped in its tracks while the rest went on without noticing.
In that place, I saw my future. Not in the details, but in the generality. I thought about it as I drove home after the shift. It was sunny, the sky soft blue and filled with sailing clouds. A beautiful evening, the world so filled with life and promise. Evenings like this have come time and time again century after century — and will still, long after I am gone. One day, my world will stop, and the world beyond will keep going. The sun will set with me . . . and rise without me. The same goes for each and every one of us. The day will come that our worlds will stop. The day will come when we must leave behind the life we were given.
What will we leave behind?
What will you leave behind?
When your world stops, will it leave something that stands as a testament to a life you were proud of? When life ends, will you have lived a life worth the journey it took to get there?
Mortality is not an easy thing to think about. It’s so easy to feel permanent. It’s almost our nature to act as if we will live forever. But if we want to live well, if you want to live well, please remember that someday in the future, a time will come when the world will go on without you, and everything that you own will sit there, frozen in time, the collective shoes unfilled of a life that has moved on.
Life is precious precisely because it comes to an end. So accept it, and get busy living. Live in memory of those who have gone before you, and live out of courage for those whose lives you can lift up. In the end, the best we can do is leave behind a life that was committed, a life that gave to others, and a life that made this world a better place.