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The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine, and don't call this my deathbed, let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain agianst her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
- Robert Test (I will Live Forever, A Semi-Religious Funeral Reading)
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I am feeling strange -- I am not dying now am I having an illness -- I just felt like something within me is trying to fathom the meaning of life ... especially my life. Am I going to die today? Or tomorrow, perhaps?
I can't help but wince at the thought. I still don't want to die young. I am not ready. I don't want to leave my love-ones without showing them hoe much I love them in my own special ways ... ways that they might not understand ... ways that might not satisfy them
Life is so short, I know. Our breath is only lent to us by God. Each day, whether we like it or not, we are postponing the inevitable death that might claim our life at any moment. While still alive, we are given the opportunity to experience everything -- happiness and sadness, love and hatred, ups and downs -- everything that are considered as the sweets and spices of life.
Each day is an exciting adventure. One day we laugh, the next day we cry, and then we laugh again.
It's so amazing how it made us insane. Living ... loving ... dying ... seemed to be our game, and life as our playground.
Each day is an undending battle, thus making us in constant war against safety from death. Many times we fought bravely just to extend life for a day or more, whether noticed or unnoticed. Perhaps to untangle all the complicated strands and connect the loss ends of what we are and who we are?
Whether or not we are living our life to the fullest, what mostly matters is whether we know what we are here in this world for. Would people remember the days while we are still alive? Or would they just bury us into oblivion ... forgotten ... unnoticed?
No? Yes? Sure? Why not? Maybe?
Which?
I really don't know. I am confused.
But one thing is for sure ... when death comes my way, I don't want it to be painful. I want it to be a sweet rebirth. And most of all, I want you to remember me like what Frost wanted. That way, I will live forever.
(09.26.2004)
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