In May of 2012 Zach Sobiech was told that cancer had spread into
his pelvis and lungs. He was told there was nothing more to be done. He was
told he had just months to live. So Zach Sobiek, at age 17, wrote a song to say
goodbye.
The song now has more than 2 million hits on YouTube. You can hear the song and watch the video Zach produced here
Have you ever wondered, out loud, or even in the silence of
your own thoughts, what your own reaction might be if given just a few months
to live. Would you try to meet someone famous, travel, or give away all of your
possessions? Would you spend it with family, with friends, or mending bridges you
burned long ago? Would you spend it in
silence and reflection or would you live as loud as you possibly could, pushing
the very last breath out of your system? Would you spend it adding up all your
regrets, or subtracting them? Would you
do everything you could to hold on to life, or would you freely let it slip
away?
Zach’s story helped me to ponder afresh again today why it
is that so many of us wait until the very last moment of life, often literally,
before we are willing to do the things we have always wanted to. The things
that are most important to us.
It isn’t at all dissimilar to me the way in which people
spend thousands of dollars on their house so that they can sell it, only to
find that once all the remodeling is over, they finally have the house that
they always wanted. And if they had
spent the money years earlier, they would have had time to actually enjoy the
house they are now handing over to someone else.
I have heard so many tales about people who have used their
final breaths to reconcile with distant parents, forgive age-old grudges, or
tell a companion how much they truly have always loved them. And then they die
without the benefit of ever being able to experience the profound changes those
conversations could have had if they occurred on this side of life.
Consider today what you might do if you only had a month to
live. And commit to doing it soon. For in the end, we all will face a time when
we have but a month to live, and without knowing it, perhaps, some of us are
already living in that month. Don’t waste it.
