How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard
I got together with friends last night for some fellowship and a drink or two. I immensely enjoyed myself. Earlier in the week, I spent a few days with a best buddy working in the woodshop on projects for our families. Great fun. In both cases, I thought how much I treasured each of these chances to be with friends...how much I loved everyone of them...with a poignancy sharpened by my terminal diagnosis 18 months ago. Its not, I thought, that the others took friends for granted, but rather that each interaction was a smaller part of their expected lifetime. Maybe. Who can know? But as Annie Dillard reminds, these moments spent with those that mean a lot to us, make up how we live our days, and how we live our lives. Prioritizing these opportunities for fun and laughter with our buddies is an important strategy for Living Wide, regardless of one's prognosis for longevity. Filling our days with smiles, with joy, and with gratitude for those that share those days with us, without regard for how many days we may have remaining, will afford us lives that are as wide as they can possibly be.