Don't wait until the diagnosis to start living

A friend recently told me his mom got very bad news from the doctor, and he asked me what advice I would give him. I thought about it for a while, because it took me back to what I learned during my wife Ona's terminal cancer journey.

This is what I told him:

First, none of us knows the date of our demise. You or I could outlive someone who's just been handed a frightening diagnosis. A diagnosis changes the odds, but it doesn't make the rest of us immortal. So alongside doing everything medically possible, I think one of the most important questions becomes: How do we make the life that remains as healthy, meaningful, and deeply lived as possible? The human body has remarkable powers of recovery. So I would clean up everything that can reasonably be cleaned up. No alcohol. Eliminate or dramatically reduce sugar, white flour, and processed foods. Eat real, nutrient-dense foods. Plenty of veggies, proper protein, healthy fats. Stay hydrated. Get good sleep. Get outside, walk, move! Meditate or pray. Whatever helps reduce stress. Very importantly, stop anything that drains the immune system.

But I also told my friend something else that may matter just as much. Surround her with love. Encouragement. Laughter. Touch. Good conversation. Beauty. Reasons to want to get up tomorrow morning. Because something happened during Ona's illness that I never expected. The last two years of our 19 together became, in many ways, our very best. Not because cancer was some kind of gift. I would never romanticize that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But knowing our time might be short, changed how we used it. We lived with intention. A day stopped feeling disposable. A morning together mattered. Conversations mattered. Touch mattered. Forgiveness mattered. Beauty mattered. Love mattered.

And there were days during those two years that seemed to contain a week's worth of meaning.

Ever since, I've pondered, why do we wait for the doctor to tell us we might die before we start living on purpose? We behave as if we have endless tomorrows in some warehouse somewhere. We put things off, we hold grudges, we work too much and love too little. We neglect our bodies. We lose sleep over things that won't matter five years from now. We forget to tell people how much they mean to us. Then suddenly someone says the word 'terminal.' And everything that matters snaps into focus.

Well, maybe we shouldn't wait. Care for your body now. Move it. Feed it well. Hydrate. Rest. Get outside. Meditate. Cut back on what's quietly harming you. But also, feed your soul. Call somebody you love. Take the trip. Watch the sunset. Forgive somebody. Plant something. Make up reasons to laugh. Sit quietly. Say the thing you've been afraid to say. Use the good dishes. Don't wait for a terminal diagnosis to give yourself permission to be fully alive.

One of the greatest things Ona taught me was this: The length of life is mostly out of our hands. The depth of it isn't.