Three Days to See
All of us have read thrilling stories
in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live.
Sometimes it was as long as a year;
sometimes as short as twenty-four hours.
But always we were interested in discovering
just how the doomed man
chose to spend his last days or his last hours.
I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice,
not condemned criminals
whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.
Such stories set us thinking,
wondering what we should do under similar circumstances.
What events, what experiences, what associations
should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings?
What happiness should we find in reviewing the past,
what regrets?
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule
to live each day as if we should die tomorrow.
Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life.
We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor,
and a keenness of appreciation
which are often lost when time stretches before us
in the constant panorama
of more days and months and years to come.
There are those, of course,
who would adopt the Epicurean motto
of "Eat, drink, and be merry,"
but most people would be chastened
by the certainty of impending death.
Most of us, however, take life for granted.
We know that one day we must die,
but usually we picture that day as far in the future.
When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable.
We seldom think of it.
The days stretch out in an endless vista.
So we go about our petty tasks,
hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.
The same lethargy, I am afraid,
characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses.
Only the deaf appreciate hearing,
only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight.
Particularly does this observation apply to those
who have lost sight and hearing in adult life.
But those who have never suffered
impairment of sight or hearing
seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties.
Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily,
without concentration and with little appreciation.
It is the same old story of not being grateful
for what we have until we lose it,
of not being conscious of health until we are ill.