How Death Can Teach Us to Live
She looked at me and said “Let me take another look... I’m going to die”
Death is a cruel and decisive beast.
And my last visit to my Great Aunty showed me what it really takes to live.
I want to tell you a story that touched me in my soul. A story that seems simple, but is profound and brings a tear to my eye, even now as I write it.
It’s time to live life… backwards?
The last time I’ll ever see her
I just finished spending a week in Akbük, Türkiye. My Grandad’s family has a summer home there and invited me for dinner.
When I walked in the door, I saw a bunch of relatives and they did the usual greetings: a kiss on both cheeks, a tight hug, and then some words about how I’ve grown so big and tall.
Behind them was a small woman. Quite old — maybe 85 or so. She looked at me with a sparkle in her eyes.
“Eren, beni hatırladın mı? (do you remember me?)” she asked.
It was my Grandfather’s sister — Rana. She’d visited us in Australia when I was very small.
Although, this time she had this aura about her. It wasn’t happiness or joy. It was more of a presence. It was like she was a child enamoured by a breathtaking view for the first time — all the time.
Great-aunt Rana didn’t say much — except she’d tell odd stories about moments that seemed insignificant to everyone at the table.
Like this one about how when I was 8 years old, I had an empty backpack and how that had confused her — “Usually, students had heavy backpacks.” My mum explained to her that I had a locker at school. She found that story very amusing. She told it 3 times. Yes, 3 times.
Why that story? I mean, it was barely even a story.
Who am I to say which memories are important and which are unimportant, but I didn’t understand why that small tidbit stuck out to her — yet.
After dinner, it was time to say goodbye to everyone, and to my great-aunt Rana.
A regular goodbye would consist of the same kisses on each cheek, and the hug, and off I’d go. But this wasn’t just a regular goodbye — for one of us.
Sure enough, she did give me a kiss on each cheek and a hug. But as I went to pull away, she kept a firm grip on the tops of my arms. She looked me dead in the eyes.
Time sort of stopped for a second…I know it sounds cliché but it really did.
At that moment, my brain was branded with the image of her looking into my eyes. I was kneeling over, she was seated.
Let me take another look. I’m old and I’m going to die. This is the last time I’ll ever get to look at you.
Say what you want about the universe being unimaginably large, and us being meaningless little ants on this huge rock spinning at incomprehensible speeds. When someone looks you in the eyes and says something like that, you feel something.
You feel it in the depths of your soul, and the way you look at the world is contorted and twisted like a wet towel being wrung out.
Now I get it.
When death is within reach — encroaching like a locomotive rolling into the station — your perspective changes. Your energy shifts. You reimagine life.
The moments are worth more now. And not just the big moments. The memories of the 8-year-old child with an empty backpack become dear to you.
When death is within reach, the stresses of life are meaningless.
That’s why she had the energy of an excited child. There’s literally no time to worry. Her time has become exponentially more valuable as the number of minutes decreases, and the experiences must fit inside those minutes.
The concentration of meaning she has to fit into her time is so dense. It’s squashed and compressed so she can live the last few moons of her life without regret.
As the clock ticks down at the end of a basketball game, and the job’s not done — it’s time to buckle down and focus.
That’s where every moment really counts.
Don’t squeeze all your moments in at the end — live life backward
My parents live in Florida. I visit them twice a year.
If my parents have 5 years to live — hopefully more — I don’t have 5 years with them.
I have 10 more visits.
— Jesse Itzler
10 visits.
That changes the ballgame, doesn’t it? When you really sit and think about all the passing moments in your life — backwards — you see how little there really is left.
And that’s why my great aunty Rana looked me in the eyes so profoundly during our goodbye.
That’s why she loved the memory of the empty backpack.
That’s why she sat and observed in awe as the family she’d created sat down for just another meal.
She can sense it — the morbid truth. She’s counting down the visits, and this is the last ‘visit’ with me.
She sees deep value in the memories of the past — because she isn’t getting many more.
Why you can’t afford to wait that long
But why should we wait until the locomotive rolls in to start paying attention to the beauty of each moment?
There’s a finite number of visits, yes, but that number isn’t predictable. The 10 might become 1 — God forbid.
There are people in my life whose family members have passed away abruptly — a feeling that I’ll never be able to comprehend. One thing I do know is that they’d trade anything for just one more visit.
If we had known how it was going to end — wouldn’t we have savoured each experience? Wouldn’t we be more grateful for that drama-filled family Christmas, for the coffee with an old friend, or the last chat with someone?
But we don’t know. So maybe we should all start to release the wasted negative energy and be more like that little enamoured kid who savours each moment.
Those close to death can teach us a lesson that’s been right under our noses this whole time. The true beauty of life isn’t in the day you see the Mona Lisa at The Louvre, the bendy tower of Piza, or even when you accept the award on stage.
It’s in the empty backpack story, in the family dinner, and in the visit to your parents. It’s in the ‘my kid’s first day of school’ kind of moments, or sitting on the couch with your buddies having a laugh — the core memories. The in-between moments.
Understand the value of every experience by analysing life backwards — and then live it forward.
Focus on what matters — live with urgency.
Thank you for reading.
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Until next week,
Eren