Recently, I read an article on Scary Mommy about a mom who was dying, with only weeks to live, now in hospice, and what she wanted to tell us was important to her in her last days. If you know me, you know that most days I think my greatest job in life is to make people happy, to make them laugh, smile… enjoy life. Do I want to read about dying? Nope. But, not all things in life are for fun.

Some things need to be said, and sometimes, they save us.

I stopped watching the news in the last couple years. I used to be comforted by the bump bump da da bump bump of the evening news broadcast or the sound of the same familiar voice as I would rock a sleepy baby with heavy eyes back to sleep while I wolfed down a middle-of-the-night bowl of cereal. But now? Now, the world scares me. I’m going to tell you, gently, that I don’t care what you think that makes me. I’m not uninformed. I read it. I just don’t watch it.

I used to have the news on while I made dinner, and I loved the sound of it in the background. My zucchini would sizzle in the frying pan with olive oil, and the smell of homemade fries would float through my house, and it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would fall asleep to the news in the background on my tan overstuffed couch and my dad was next to me in his maroon overstuffed recliner and I was safe, happy.

So one night, I walked into my living room to check on my kids, and as I got closer, I heard the story coming out of the TV was about a horrific rape and murder of a woman, and it was followed by a bombing that killed over a hundred citizens. I cornered into the room, and I saw all three of my kids with eyes wide open staring straight at it all.

For what?

We can know that these things happen. We can be informed. We can work for change. We must not bury our heads in the sand. But, I found the more I stared at it like they were that night, eyes wide open, staring at its gore, the sicker I felt.

You know what the lady in the Scary Mommy article talked about doing in her last days? The joy of attending a princess birthday party.

I thought about that. How little I like princess characters and how sometimes, a birthday party can be stressful. She says that, too. But she said that somehow, knowing that it was likely her last one, she couldn’t get enough of it. She wanted it to last forever. Watch the child blow out her candles. Taste the cake. Drink the lemonade. Look at the faces of her friends and her family. Watch the kids run across the yard and through the sprinkler!

Have you been in the moment like that recently? Have you breathed in a moment like that lately?

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. The biggest ones aren’t the ones that you would think.

The biggest ones are the ones when I was here, but I wasn’t really here.

Today, as I stared at the article from the woman with only weeks to live, from a woman with more perspective than I ever hope to have, I thought,

What would I do if I found out I only had two weeks left? What would I do if I knew this was it for me?

And I decided on a few things. I would not be watching the news still… staring at the gore of this world. But, I would be staring at my babies’ faces in all of their glory and watching them splash and play and fight and bicker and cry and sleep and get things dirty.

And I would love this life…

…with the perspective of one with only weeks left to live, like the invitee of a Disney princess birthday party, tasting the sweetness of cake and fresh lemonade in summer.