Ok, fair warning here. This blog is all about death. There’s nothing quite like facing mortality and the possibility of your own death to feel like you’ve been slapped up the side of the head. It sure gets your attention and makes you take stock of your life, where you are and where you want to be. Makes you realize that where you want to be is not always where you are heading unless you make some changes.

I’ve had a few moments in the past few years when I felt like I was being given a warning to change my lifestyle. A few episodes where I had some health problems that could be serious or could just be my imagination or a panic attack. Two or three times when I was taken out of Walmart in a wheelchair. I’m never been too fond of going to medical doctors. That’s mostly because of the cost. But after one episode at Walmart I went to the doctor and was told it was a virus.

Let’s back this up a few years and mention the fact that I’ve never felt like I was going to live to be very old. In fact, as odd as this might sound, a couple of weeks ago I had this very strong feeling that a wedding to Rod is never gonna be in my future because I’m not going to be around by the time he decides what he wants or is ready for it. Now I realize the definition of old varies from person to person. Heaven knows, when I was 18 I couldn’t imagine being 25. And now I’m a few months short of fifty or half a century—yuck! Of course, with my lifestyle, why would I live to be old? But lately the feeling has come back. And this week it got stronger. I had a few symptoms that could be either mild or bad, and I figured I’d just ignore it unless it got bad. But Wednesday at work I just lost it. All of a sudden I got scared to death and shaky and started to cry. I just got up, locked my stuff up and told Barb that I wasn’t feeling good and needed to go home. I actually drove to the hospital and sit outside the ER for a while before turning around and going home. I told myself that if it got worse, I’d go to the hospital. Things didn’t get any worse, but they didn’t get much better. So Friday I ended up at a doctor’s office. After checking me over and an actual EKG, he told me he thinks the problem isn’t my heart, at least not right now. But he had me do a chest x-ray to look at a few other things including my lungs. He gave me a sample inhaler to see if my shortness of breath is my asthma. I have to admit, I think it’s helping. And I got back to work on Saturday.

Well, I guess this led to my two daughters having a talk about their Mom. So Friday afternoon as Lala and I were driving down the road, we got on the subject of death. We laughed and we cried. I told her my feeling of dying young and promised to move into my own place before that happened. She said if I was gonna die she wanted me in her house. We discussed where I want a few of my important things to go. And then we actually discussed a living funeral. I can’t even remember where she heard this, but we decided if I ever find out something is wrong with me, we’re gonna have a party, invite only the people I want and celebrate my life long before anybody gets to talk about me at my funeral. It was actually good for us to have this talk. Lala’s lost too many people in the last few years and has faced too much death. But she’s a lot tougher than she knows she is.

As I said at the beginning, thinking about your own death makes you face the future a little differently. I’ve actually been making some changes and setting some goals for my future however long that is. But I’m also going to start living for today more and not living for tomorrow. I’ve done that for 49 years, but it’s time to stop. A few years ago I heard Tim McGraw’s song “Live Like You Were Dyin” and loved it. Well, it’s time I start doing that in my own life. So watch out world, Susan’s in charge and making some changes!