“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day… There are only so many tomorrows.”

Pope Paul VI

I was scouting out a setting for a scene in one of my stories, when I came across her grave.

The little gravestone was nestled at the base of an old pine tree, overgrown with English ivy and half buried in pine needles. I was in the old graveyard at the summit of Sighișoara’s historic citadel, in Romania. A warm June morning, sparrows singing in the woods, the wind rustling the trees.

That small, neglected grave caught my eye. I read the date.

December 23, 1983 — November 2, 1984

Less than a year.

It made me wonder at all the years I have been given. Here I was, close to my 29th birthday, while this person — and so many like her — never got one. Twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine chances to live, to love, and to learn. How many heartbeats is that? How many breaths? How many moments? How many smiles? Many, many thousands. So easy not to notice. So easy to waste. So easy to forget how quickly it can vanish.

You only have so many tomorrows. But you have so many.

It is not the length of life that matters most, but the breadth of life. Nonetheless, we must be grateful for the time we are given, because each breath, every beat of your heart, is a chance to create something beautiful — a chance to live. How will you use that opportunity? What will you do today that will put another brushstroke on a life well lived? Cherish this, because of all the billions of people in the world, only you can do what you were put here for. The world needs that. Out there, somewhere, someone needs the gift that were born to give. You are here for a reason.

You only have so many tomorrows. One day, tomorrow will arrive, and you won’t be there. The sun will rise without you. The birds will sing, and you won’t be there to hear them. That’s okay. We all get there one day. What matters is what we’ve done before that time arrives.

I’m grateful for that reminder. I will never know that girl, but she touched my life, and I pass that on to you, dear reader. Though we all take different paths in life, no matter where we go, we carry a little of each other along with us.

This one’s for you, Ume.