Imagine You Have 100 Days to Live

4 years ago - as we sat in the waiting room of the ER - I wrote this in my journal:

October 12, 2016

This is not our story. This is not our story. This is not our story.

We cannot be that couple. That couple you read about, with tears in your eyes and pity in your hearts. The story where both individuals, in a horrifying 'fuck you' from the universe, get cancer. That is NOT our story.

We are the couple that others look up to. That defy the odds. We are in love. Deep, real, raw, beautiful, death defying, love.

We are the couple that sticks together for a life long romance until we die peacefully in our sleep at the exact. same. time. We are supposed to die old.

Or at least Brad is.

I started to imagine my death when I got diagnosed with Lymphoma at 28. And again at 29. And every day since. Brad is the rock. The support system. The survivor. Plus, he promised me I could die first. And Brad would never break a promise.

So this is not our story.

It started 4 weeks ago. Fevers. Night sweats. Pain in his abdomen. We thought it was a flu. Then a kidney stone. Then a bladder infection.

But in the last few days, It's been hard not to think cancer. His symptoms mimic so much of what I had. So much of what I am still asked at follow up appointments. "Fevers?" "Night sweats?" "Weight loss?" Yes, yes, yes.

But everything online always leads to cancer (thanks, WebMD). And I am a worrier, always imagining the worst - always imagining cancer.

This is not the worst.

This is not our story.

It can’t be.

I wrote this post from a worst case scenario, never believing that Brad actually had cancer. And certainly not that it would be terminal. And definitely not that he would be dead 100 days later.

2 days earlier, we were driving back from the UP, celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary. We spent the car ride home brainstorming our future - whether or not to have kids, plans for running for office, cities where we would retire. We were in our early 30s and planning our retirement - THAT’s how sure we were of NOT dying.

Imagine thinking you have decades of life left. Plenty of time to take that trip or write that book or watch that sunrise. 

But you don’t have a bottomless supply of tomorrows.

You have today. Right now. And if you’re lucky - tomorrow.

4 years ago, I sat next to Brad - a healthy, vibrant human with a lifetime of plans and a pain in his side. I wrote out my worst case scenario, assuming if I said it “out loud” it would somehow protect us from the wrath of its reality.

100 days later Brad was gone.

Imagine this is your final 100 days. What would you do?