I've only thought about living.
Which is interesting, because they're two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other.
Sure, I've thought about death, and how mine, because of my CF, will most likely come before most of my friends' and family's deaths, but I realized while I was talking to a professor of mine that I've never thought about dying. I realized this when we were talking about Five Feet Apart, and we got on the subject of shortened lifespans and how it has made my perspective on life generally more positive and care free. But I remembered how in the book, Will talks about how he always imagined his last physical inhalations, and the last conscious thought of his. And it made me think, do most people with CF think about that? I mean, they have to, right? From what I've read and watched and heard from my peers with cystic fibrosis, this seems to be a common thought (in the shared sense of the word). Claire Wineland certainly thought about it, and the characters in the book/movie do. So why haven't I?
As I consider this question, I can't think of any satisfactory answers, but one keeps coming back: because I don't care. It doesn't make a difference to me. Because I want to focus on other things, like living.
I know that last breath is coming. Whether it's from CF or not doesn't matter, it's coming for all of us. So why does it matter what it's like, or what it feels like, or what's going through our heads? We're going to be dead in like, a second after that, anyway. But we're not going to be dead a second after we live. Who knows what's going to happen next? That's the exciting part about life! That's why we have to live it and focus on it and get excited about that!
Sure, there's the whole "what's going to happen after death" debate, but what's the point of focusing on something that some people don't even believe in? People believe in life and living, and I prefer focusing on what I can control, on how I can make the most of my life, and therefore not even worry about death. Because I know if I've made the most of my life now, and not five years from now when I am tenured or am published, or when I have 3 kids and a white picket fence, or have a pretty retirement savings account built up, but now, then death won't be a problem for me. I'll be ready, and I won't have any regrets.
I don't want to say thinking about death is bad. Really, just the opposite. It's one of the few things that human beings have in common, but we have built such a strange, depressing atmosphere around it. It's good to consider it and normalize it, but to focus on it isn't what I'd recommend.
I've never wondered about that last breath. Because that's not what it's about. That's not the point. To me, because we'll all have that last breath, it's boring focusing on that; I like to see what we can do differently, what sets us apart and makes us unique, what makes us happy and what makes life worth living. Life isn't about that last breath; doesn't that defeat the purpose of, you know, life? Let's not rush anything. Let's live while we can, and die when we must.
