It’s now Oct. 18th, 2017 and Gord Downie, aged 53, has passed away.  I wanted to repost this one in honour of a life lived well with love.  Take care.  

This is the first post I’ve written since my Aunt died.  I haven’t been able to post anything since.  She read everything I wrote.  She commented on everything I posted.  Sometimes it seemed like she was my only ‘fan’.  I still think that. Even if what I wrote was total crap, she liked it.  She laughed at it.  She loved it anyway…at least, she made it look like she did.   I didn’t realize how much I wrote knowing she was there to read it, until after she was gone.  It’s weird she won’t read this.  I think she would have liked this one…

Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”   

What an emotional week.  The Hip concert, our friend crashing his bike, another friend’s mother has heart issues and an old friend of our family died this morning…it seems that life is taking a journey into a roller coaster of ‘life is too short’ expressions and asking us all to take a good hard look at how we do this life thing and get on with it.  Move it, sista and get to whatever it is you need to do because tomorrow is not promised to you.  It is dangled precariously in front of your face, lulling you into a false sense of promised procrastination, all the while the edge of that cliff draws ever so near.

There is no waiting until tomorrow, or I’ll get to it next week, it’s now or never time.  It’s the time to do that massive thing you’ve always wanted to do because tomorrow is gonna be too late!  Never have I felt so urgent a need to appreciate a day in the sunshine or a day in the rain as I have this week.  To love my grey hair, (sorry bestie) my uneven walk and my penchant for junk food…hell I’m even relishing my descent into madness (via the other M word) and learning to cope with hot flashes and mood swings…Yeah, it’s happening and that’s a whole other rant.  I’m grateful…just to be able to feel something and relate and cope and struggle and rant.  I’m grateful for the opportunity.  I’m grateful for this day.

Saturday night, Canada closed down for three precious hours and said goodbye to Gord Downie and The Hip.  The band. The Canadian guys.  The guy who is dying, has his days numbered on a calendar and instead of taking to his bed and laying down, he got out into the spotlight and sang his heart out in towns across Canada to say goodbye and thank you to his fans and the people who supported his music and his life for the past 52years.  How awesome is that?  It must have drained every last bit of energy in him to hit that stage and sing, perform and dance for his fans, his people.  The mere act of standing must have taken its toll, but he did it anyway.  He cried, screamed, danced and sang all laying it out for the country he loved, to see.  He sang with humility, honesty and a great deal of force. There was no time to hold back, no putting it off until tomorrow or next week, it was now time.  It was heartbreaking and emotional and difficult to watch, but we did anyway.

That’s what walking through life is, isn’t it?  Singing, dancing, screaming, crying all with a great deal of humility, love, passion and power until finally you are no more.

“With illusions of someday casting a golden light. No dress rehearsal, this is our life.”

Get to it.  We have to crush this living thing…we owe it to the people who don’t have that chance, who will never have that chance.  We owe it to ourselves at the very least.