Reality testing

Sometimes I think that we live day-to-day in a dense fog.  Then, once in awhile, something happens to clear the air and we see clearly. The air got cleaner for me today when I learned that the person with whom  I am sharing a garden this summer has a diagnosis of  "terminal" Cancer. (I learned long ago that the word "terminal" should be crossed out when talking about an illness. The better adjective is "life-threatening".  The truth is that no one (doctors) really knows outcomes for sure. They only predict, like soothsayers of old, except now it is Science, not the Spirits, that they invoke.)

It is unusual for someone to discuss his illness as openly as my neighbor does. Though I have spent significant time with the dying, his conversation drew me up short once again. He lifted my curtain of fog, and I realized with a start that what is happening today  in my life must be lived now , and not postponed for an uncertain future.  Reality is now, not next week, or next month, and anyone who postpones living vividly today, who waits to live more fully in some vague 'future', is truly in a "terminal" condition.  My neighbor, from what he said, lives very much in the now.