If You Had Six Months To Live

Imagine you are given a cancer diagnosis.  You are told you have between six and nine months to live.  Your quality of life will be fairly good for at least a few of those months.

This question came to me after a conversation at breakfast with a friend of mine today.  He told of a woman who had this experience, and she had decided to take three of her closest friends on a private cruise of the northwest on a gorgeous yacht. It sounded wonderful and led me to thinking what I might do in that situation. 

What would you do?  Would you travel? Where to and what would you want to see? Would you go to a place from your youth, or somewhere you have always wanted to go? Would you write poetry, a novel, paint? You might want to spend the time visiting family and friends and arranging that final party. Would you want to take charge of your possessions, and who they went to, arrange your final party, your send-off, your bequests? Would you give all your money away while you were alive, donate to charity?

I think it’s important to think of this kind of thing, so that you can come to know what you want to make sure is done before you leave this world. 

On a very personal note, my brother died of cancer when he was 27. He knew it was coming and did many of those things. He was too ill to travel, but he visited with friends, arranged his service with his mother, and gave away all his possessions so that there was nothing left behind for his family to clean up for him.

We can’t all do that, but there is a book I have called the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning. It talks about what someone can do to be tidy, so that there isn’t a mess left at the end for others to deal with.

One of the things that I pride myself on is being sensitive to how difficult these decisions are. Perhaps now is the time to do the death cleaning before you run out of time, but perhaps not. Something that I can do for people in this difficult and personal time is to help you do that sorting. I have been through this experience and it is stressful, painful and emotional. I can help you to make this easier. If you need to talk or have any questions, email me at differentpath17@gmail.com or call me. You know I am here for you.