What if you knew somebody you loved would die next week?
Every night, I would wait in our living room, eagerly anticipating the ‘garage door’ sound that would signal the arrival of my Dad.
For the longest time — I think for the first 13 or 14 years of my life — we had a great relationship.
And so, I’d wait for that sound, hear it, and spring downstairs in order to give him a big, ‘ol hug.
It was one of my favorite moments throughout the day, and I’m sure his.
Sometimes, he’d sneak into my room late at night and tell me, “Don’t tell mom!” and we’d play Gran Turismo together into the wee hours of the morning.
Once a year — as part of a work retreat — we’d drive all the way up to Montreal, Canada, for the Canadian Gran Prix.
We’d stay in a nice hotel, eat delicious French-Canadian cuisine, and watch as deafening Formula 1 cars flew by for a split second during race day.
It was one of my favorite moments of the years.
We had a tight bond that centered around our mutual love of cars, sports, and video games.
As I grew older, and more difficult, that relationship continued to shift and evolve — I think I became increasingly frustrated in my parent’s constant fighting and, at some point, picked a side and always held a bitter resentment against my dad.
But I’ll never forget those moments as a kid — sitting there, playing games, being a kid.
If we were together, we were spending time together.
And nothing more.
No distractions — just my dad and me.
…
A few years ago, while sitting in my grandparent’s kitchen after an afternoon of moving a ton of crap out of their house, I watched as my dad, sitting in front of me, put his head down and his hand over his face and suddenly fell unconscious, directly into a bowl of soup that he’d been eating.
At the time, I thought he was dead — my mom did, too.
Our friends at the time knew CPR, so they quickly went to work, putting his feet up (apparently not a great idea), and starting to pump his chest.
Those next few minutes felt like an eternity.
My mom was frantic, and I had no idea what to do so I just called 911 and gave them our address. That felt useful.
Moments later, he came to — he had just passed out from exhaustion, and likely from not eating enough.
By the time the paramedics had arrived, he was up and talking — not in great, working condition, mind you, but still conscious.
The next day, my sister and I went to visit him in the hospital — for a moment, or maybe a few, all of the years of resentment that I’d held towards him completely cleared out.
Since then, I can’t say that our relationship ever returned to the way it was when I was a kid — I still frequently disagree with his political viewpoints and hold that against him and he still annoys me sometimes and does shit that absolutely embarrasses me — but I know that, at least, he’s trying.
I spend much less time being angry at him and much more time just accepting that, “I can’t change him — so I might as well just accept it.”
I think that experience — recognizing just how much somebody can disappear from your life in a moment’s notice — has colored that.
I try to spend as much time with him and my family being present with them.
What if you knew somebody you loved would die next week?
The question I’ve often been asking myself, friends, and clients in our conversations if you knew that somebody you absolutely loved was going to die in the next week, how would what you’re doing today change?
(And the question before or after that was probably, do you have any cool socks?)
They say they would stop doing a certain type of work, they would eliminate a lot of the ‘busy work’ that they often find themselves doing, and they’d spend as much time as humanly possible with that person.
For better or worse, COVID-19 has made the reality that we are feeble, hallow shells of flesh whose lives can change quite dramatically through one tiny little bug so, so apparent.
And then the followup question I ask is, “OK — then what is stopping you from doing that, now?”
And the answer, more often than not, is money.
Or, logistical challenges.
Or, because they don’t want to let people down.
Or, because they won’t die next week, that’s silly!
And suddenly, a vision that was two seconds ago so, so crystal-clear has become obfuscated again by roundabout reasoning.
So, I start digging a bit more — “If you could start working towards that dream today, what would that look like?”
And then we start to get some concrete answers.
We start to realize that maybe spending 80-hours a week at a company that we despise isn’t what we actually want to be doing; that saying ‘yes’ to all of our friend’s absurd requests is leaving us drained and resentful; that, actually, we don’t give a shit about some of the dreams we’re working towards.
And we come to the similar conclusion that the relationships we grow, the people we spend time with, and the things we create through our own volition — those are what really matter.
And that if we could spend as much time as possible on those things, we’d be much, much happier.
And all of that comes down to learning how to properly value your time.
