Do what you love

I’ve had a lot of opportunity to ponder death this semester. Sounds macabre, I know, but honestly, while it’s been tough, it has also been very refreshing and, on some level, very liberating.

I lost my father to cancer 28 years ago, when I was 14. He died in the days before hospice and and healthcare’s focus on maintaining the comfort and dignity of the dying person. Rather, his doctors focused on keeping him on alive as long as possible, even when his weight had dwindled to nothing–his clothes hanging on his 5′11″ frame–and even after the sepsis they managed to “cure” had left this man who graduated from high school at 15 unable to read or write.

I feared and hated hospitals for a long time after that. I avoided people who were dying, and I avoided friends with family members who were dying.

In recent years, I stopped fearing hospitals, but my fear shifted–I grew to fear dying myself, especially after I lost a former college roommate to adrenal cancer at age 38 and watched my sister deal with the loss of her partner to ovarian cancer. I feared (still fear) dying primarily not because I’m worried about the “after” (I’m comfortable with my faith), but because I worry about what I will leave… my kids, my husband, all I’ve done in this world.

This semester, I’ve cared for a dying patient who was able to be comfortable and communicating with his family just 48 hours before his death. I’ve cared for patients whose condition was ultimately terminal, but who refused to make behavioral changes that could improve the quality, and extend the length of, their lives. I’ve cared for a patient who refused her meds because, she said, “I’m dead already. What’s the use?”

And then I think about Harry Kalas, the Phillies broadcaster who died in the broadcast booth last week at the age of 73. And of a friend’s mother-in-law, who died in her sleep after whooping it up at a family wedding. And of the 10th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School.

The conclusion I’ve come to? Life is short, regardless of how, and when, you die. It’s too short to not step outside to smell the fresh air. Too short to not give your toddler “one mo hug,” or to tell your snarling teenager you love him anyway. Too short to not leave your sleeping husband a note telling him you appreciate him holding down the fort while you’re at nursing school. To listen to a coworker who needs to talk. And most of all, life is far, far too short to do something you don’t love to do, that you don’t want to give 110% of your heart to.

I still fear death, but death has taught me that what I fear most is not having given everything I do my best shot.

What are you passionate about? Is it nursing? Something else? Give it everything you’ve got–and the mark you leave on the world will be indelible.