September 06, 2011

No second chance

A good read

"Abe recalled hearing medical examiners say a person who died lost twenty-one grams of weight - the measure of a human soul. He realized, though, holding his daughter in his arms, that the scale was all wrong. Loss should have been measured in leagues: the linear time line he would not spend with her as she lost her first tooth, lost her heart over a boy, lost the graduation cap she tossed into a silvered sky.

Loss should have been measured circularly, like angles: the minutes between the two of them, the degrees of separation"

Weight and Measure by Jodi Picoult in Stories edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio.

Life has taught us one thing and that there is only that one chance, to everything in it. There is no guarantee of a second nor a third chance, as certain as death of loved ones, death of everyone, death of all of us.

We have one life, the one and only life. We only need that one chance of a lifetime to live life to the fullest, to love and be in love, to stay happy, to let our loved ones know that they are loved, to do good things, to learn and gain knowledge, to cure cancer, to climb that mountain, to realize our dreams, and many more great things.

Let's not waste this one chance. Carpe diem!