Carpe Diem! Seize the day! As an eight year old, my eyes gazed upon life with this kind of exuberance; why wouldn’t any of us at this age? We had no troubles. We had the love of family and friends; we had our health; we had dreams and the energy to go after them. Never did it occur to us that we all lived on borrowed time.

I didn’t learn about death until I was 23. My mother was the first person with whom I experienced this state of finality. I suppose I was fortunate enough not to have been given a glimpse of this dread by other family members or friends. Though, had I been given that glimpse, perhaps I would not have been so flippant in my early adulthood and may have looked at life differently. I remember the day we learned of my mother’s uterine cancer. My stomach churned, a putrid taste immediately permeated my mouth, my knees seemed to buckle underneath me while my hands became as ice. That word. That word provokes such an emotion in me. Cancer. How I despise it; but then again, who would not?

I was twenty years old, hurt, angry and in denial. I was not about to lose my mother! I had just spent the previous six months caring for my father who had been diagnosed with a kidney disorder and was unable to work. So here we were, looking death in the eye. I refused to let it win without a fight.

Three years of surgery, intense chemo therapy , radiation, having it go into remission, then having this plague ultimately besiege her lungs, brought the fight to an end. I had to face the darkness of death; being without the one I loved, never ever to see her again.

I learned in those three years the importance of Carpe Diem and often beat my breast in agony at the lost moments that could have been. I could have been a better daughter; I could have appreciated her more; I could have spent more time with her; I could have shown her more love .

How many times my parents said: “When we retire, we will travel to Italy and tour Europe.” or “Once the children are out of the house, we can do this or that.” They never got to travel, nor do any of the things they had dreamed.

It was in our family, like most Italian families, that grudges had been begotten. My mother was the youngest of seven; the last four being all girls. She and her three older sisters had been close growing up, but something happened once my mother moved away. The relationships between she and them became strained. To this day I don’t know the cause, nor is it important, but it was the news of her impending terminal illness that brought them back together. I remember seeing she and my aunts with sobs, wishing they had not wasted all those years and hearing them speak the words, “How sorry we are that it took THIS to bring us back together.”, “How could we have allowed this breach to happen?”, and, “We should have made more of an effort to visit one another sooner.” Ah, the price of pride…

“Let’s wait until we have the money.”, “We can’t afford it.”, “I can’t take the time off of work.”, “It’s not a good time now.”, “Maybe next year or one day.” How many times do we fool ourselves by uttering these lies? How often do we put off living out our dreams? Why do we make excuses not to seize the day? We are on borrowed time and, for some, that time may not be as long as we think it should be.

I truly believe it was a bittersweet miracle losing my mother. I miss her immensely but because of it I realized that death cannot be stopped. It is inevitable. It has made me take stock in my life over the years and re-evaluate things. Death’s sting is much too venomous and the pain too harrowing for me to allow it to rob those precious moments of life which I can make into beautiful memories with my family and friends. I find a way to live my dreams; I don’t take relationships for granted or hold grudges. I make the time to be with others.  Death has shaken me up and made me realize what is truly important in this life; not money, not the house I live in, or the car I drive; the clothes I wear, or the toys that one collects to provide a brief bit of happiness. No, these are not important at all when you look death in the eye. What is important are those close to you; your spouse, your children, your family and friends. People. People are the important things.

God is the other important thing. There is an after life. Though we sometimes don’t want to think about it, there is a Heaven and there is a Hell. Going to one of those places is inevitable too. We can’t side track it. Death has made me also look to where I don’t want to end up.

Over the last few weeks, I have had the word “cancer” enter my life, as did a few of my close family members and a very dear friend. All three cases were totally unexpected. I know that the struggle for these special people will be a difficult one. I do believe miracles happen all the time, though sometimes they come in forms we aren’t expecting. My prayer is that not only they, but all of you, seize the day! Step back in those shoes of an eight year old. Do not wait to mend relationships; do not wait to make those special trips, or visit loved ones; do not let work make you a slave, or “stuff” replace the joy you could be receiving from what is really important. In other words, don’t wait until death knocks at your door before you think about wanting to live. But most importantly, do not wait until that last breath to think about where your eternity will be spent. Death has no rules. It could visit you tomorrow, or not for many years to come; don’t let it rob you of life here or the one on the other side. Clean up your conscience and make amends with your God.