Five Years to Live

No, that’s not my prognosis but another intentional contemplation.  There was a sense I felt that I was dealing with cancer with a bit of resilience and courage.  Then as life often does, it contradicted my confidence.  This time with Håkan’s medical scare (Yes, he’s also living with a rare blood condition that could one day worsen). Very quickly the fortitude collapsed into a deep well of sorrow that I hadn’t felt for a while. That’s when the ‘Two in a Boat’ poem came back. I realized that I took too much credit for my strength when it was my partner who fortified and nourished me.  

Two in a Boat  

There are two of them 
In a boat, 
One reads the stars, 
The other finds the way through the storms, 
When one navigates the stars, 
The other leads through the storms, 
And then, at the end, at the very end, 
They’ll remember 
The sea was blue.  

Reiner Kunze (Translation by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels)  

After the scare, we sat and contemplated together. We are all born into this world and from that day on, we walk toward death. Without exception, we all die. With very few exceptions, we don’t know when we will expire. With that sobering, yet illuminating reality – again, we decided to live the next five years as if it were our last five. And it’s not too far-fetched for us.  

A life unlived and unexplored doesn’t count even if we had 50 years left. If we can live today, fully present and appreciate the beauty of all things in it, even five days would be better.  

So, you might ask, Why five years? Why not just one month? It would make life even more precious, wouldn’t it? The thing is this. I find it harder to implement it in our reality and make meaningful planning.  So the first thing we tackled was to update our top destinations to explore in this world.  If we only have five years, well, we have to prioritize!  As it stands, I’m still going through chemo treatments so going far away would be tricky.  We settle on Arizona. We had planned to go last winter to see the deserts but it was rudely interrupted with my cancer diagnosis. We chose Arizona because it would be easy to fit in between my treatments and it is a place relatively close by (direct flight) and easy access to our medical system if needed. So Arizona it is.  

So aside from exploring the world, what else would we want to do with a shorter life span in mind? Will we see more family? Will we see some friends more often? Will it be different with them now that there’s a ‘finality’ to our relationships? Probably, right? 

Håkan says he wants to write more songs for one more album. Will I write a book with my mom as a subject? Will these creations add anything to this world? My hope would be yes.  With so much turmoil and darkness around, adding a little light can only be a good thing.  So we will.  Continue to breathe.  Continue to appreciate the beauty of living.  Be generous.  Be kind.  And as I write these words, the sun just emerged outside our Arizona window.  I will open the blinds fully and let the light in.