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Living And Not Dying
I had begun sleepwalking through life, dragging my daughter and my employees and my bags of groceries, living on freeways during the long commutes, almost falling asleep in the slow crawl of the 405, my forehead against the steering wheel, defeated.
And after doctors told me I was dying, and I believed them, because dying must feel like this, the wick flickering, and slight breeze you can barely feel on your cheek…
Dear God, keep me alive until my daughter doesn’t need me.
Dear God, allow me enough time to contribute my gifts to the world, though I don’t know what those gifts are yet.
…I had to ask the most important question, and that question became my daily prayer — “How shall I live knowing I’m going to die?”
That question is my prayer today, eighteen years later.
I began traveling. I took my daughter out of school. We saw Broadway shows and laughed with friends and suddenly the air wasn’t stagnant. We saw jazz at two am, and let Cherry Blossoms rain on us in Central Park…
We mapped Puerto Rico from the small window of an airplane as we prepared to land so I could show her the man with one arm who carved the most beautiful nativity sets, the basilicas and the old women who prayed for all our souls.
