A friend of mine.
A good friend of mine passed away Tuesday. Mrs. Murphy would come up my driveway from her home across the street for the last seven years to have a snack, see what I was up to, or just to spend a few moments with me. Her health had taken a dive six months ago when her brother, William, had passed away. She had become so frail I’d gotten into the habit of keeping one eye on our driveway for her approach and running after her and opening a fresh can if I missed her.
But this post isn’t about cats. It’s about death. And what you – yes, you – need to learn about death. Consider this the ultimate lifehack.
Here’s the basics: as you get older in life, death pays you more visits. At least in the developed world, death – real death, not entertaining death on television – may not stop by your life until you’re in your thirties. Then the pace picks up. A grandmother. A friend from high school, perhaps a brother or sister, a parent. When you hit mid-life, you realize in your guts you’ll be seeing a lot more of death in the future than you have in the past.
Sure, you should and will fight the good fight every time death stops by – and that is good, and right and the right thing to do. But we all know how that fight turns out.
My point in writing this post isn’t to depress the hell out of you, and it’s sure as hell not to say you should welcome or surrender or accept death. It’s a quiet suggestion you think about what death has to teach you about life. Your life. You see, every time death comes knocking, you realize with a jolt just how important, how absolutely totally important, the people you love and what you build in your life are.
The point of Getting Things Done isn’t getting more things done – that’s run the rat race faster and faster thinking. The point is so you can share being alive with the people (human and non-human) you love and with the rest of us by what you build. GTD and all the lifehacks you read online are good and useful things – but their only big and small ways to help you have enough time and a low enough stress level so you can do the really important things in your life:
- Like tell your wife, husband, sweetheart how much you love them.
- Like if you don’t have someone to love in your life making the effort to change that.
- Like finding some way – even a tiny, nano little way – to make this a less fracked up world and the human race a smidgen more worthy of being called human.
- Like spending a few moments out of your day visiting with Mrs. Murphy.
Bob Walsh sells MasterList Professional, a Windows task management application and writes, codes,
podcasts and blogs about different aspects of the digital lifestyle at ToDoOrElse, MyMicroISV and Clear Blogging. His second book, Clear Blogging, is now available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Tags: 
Get your own Avatars at 
Loading ...
Comments
Andrea Nagar says on April 16th, 2007 at 11:48 am
A great post Bob. I sympathize with you. I live with two cats and lost two in the past (and I still miss them after many years). They become part of your life and leave a great emptiness behind.
I think that the greatest joy in life is sharing it with the people / animals you love.
Paulo Camilo says on April 16th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I’m very sorry, Bob. I’ve lost some Friends too, in the past: dogs, cats, an horse.
Sometimes, when this sad things happen, I just say to them, they are going to live the other ones.
I miss them, but I think they’re watching over me: all the things I do, all the attitudes, all my live…
And I prefer the budhist thinking: they/we all reborn and I’m sure that I’ve the luck to meet them here or in another life.
Carm Scott says on April 16th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Thank you for this thought provoking and well written post. So sorry for your loss.
Martijn Engler says on April 16th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I’m not in my thirties (still some years to go before I’m even thirty), but I’ve lost enough people already (I don’t have any grandparents, lost some family, a girl from school, friends of the family etc.) to know how it feels.
I used to think about that sort of thing from time to time and tell people how I feel about them (well, the ones I like ;)).. When I was going to such a period my girlfriend used to be like “oh, there we go again..” - one of the few things she never really did get about me, I guess. Funny thing is, since I lost her - no, she’s not dead; we’re just not together anymore - I don’t have that kind of talk with my friends anymore. For me that shows how important it is to have somebody to love..
Martijn Engler says on April 16th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
And Bob, of course I’m very sorry for your loss.
Minh says on April 16th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I’m sorry for your loss Bob. Time and understanding will heal this wound. I wish you good spirits and future happiness.
Gen says on April 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
That was really touching. It’s good to get a reminder about what’s important once in a while. I’m sorry for your loss… Life is short, might as well make it sweet–and it looks like you’ve got that covered.
Mike says on April 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Fantastic. This really is the stuff that should be top of the great todo list in the sky. Submitted by Digg.
Aaron says on April 16th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
It all boils down to Love.
alandr7 says on April 17th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Bob,
Thanks for the heartfelt post. I also lost a dear friend on 3/22. My cat named Rumpleteaser was 10 years old and suffered from epileptic seizures several times a year. We now focus our attention on her brother from the same litter, Skimbleshanks, whom also has seizures. We worry that he may die in the near future. I always try to find ways to take special care of my animals since they are therapeutic and provide nothing but love in return.
Marlon Montenegro says on April 17th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Your message was very inspirational and brought my mode of thinking about how I spend my time back into perspective.
Ron says on April 18th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Thank you for a very poignant post. My cat Missy is 12 now and still in good health, but I know she won’t be around forever. I know it will be hard when she goes. Thank you for some very nice sentiments.
Ron
Areen says on April 20th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Aww.. thats really sad.. Sorry to hear that.. She was beautiful..