As Margaret’s disease progressed, she was more and more disturbed by the prospect of this ultimate separation. Hours before she died, she turned to Frank, who was sitting at her bedside. Her mind was clear and alert, for she had not taken any medications. She said, “I’m going to be leaving soon. And it’s finally okay.”

&#What has made it okay for you?” he said.

?I’ve just been told I’m going to a place where you already are. You will be there when I get there.”

Is it possible that Frank is simultaneously sitting in the hospital room and waiting for his beloved wife in heaven? Perhaps. Or perhaps the questions revolve around our perception of time. For Frank, who lives and breathes in time, it may be five, ten, or twenty years before he sees Margaret again. But if she is going to a place where there is no more time, it may seem that he arrives a second behind her. Time is longer for the survivor than for the one who dies.

In a terminal illness, how does any doctor really know when someone has six months to live? Standing at the edge of time, you want to know how much time you have left, but you have never known. In looking at the lives and deaths of others, we often say that someone “died before their time.” We feel their lives were incomplete, but there are only two requirements for a complete life: birth and death.

Beethoven was “only” fifty-seven when he died, yet his accomplishments were tremendous. John F. Kennedy, Jr. died at age thirty-eight. he never held an elected office, yet he was more loved than many of our presidents. Were these lives incomplete? This question takes us back to the wristwatch concept of life, by which everything is measured and judged artificially. We don’t know what lessons others are supposed to learn, we don’t know who they were supposed to be or how much time they were supposed to have. As hard as it may be to accept, the reality is that we don’t die before our time. When we die, it is our time.

Our challenge is to fully experience this moment––and it’s a great challenge. To know that this instant contains all the possibilities for happiness and love and not lose these possibilities in expectations of what the future should look like. In putting aside our sense of anticipation we can live in the sacred space of what is happening now.

David Kessler has helped thousands face life and death with peace, dignity and courage. His experiences have taken him from Auschwitz concentration camp to Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta. David teaches therapists, doctors and nurses on grief and loss and leads a support group for people with cancer.
www.DavidKessler.org

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