To the editor,

When I first started this, I was just writing some thoughts down for our Loss Support Group and it turned into this. I wasn’t even thinking about writing anything for the paper. If I had, I would have said, “What? Are you crazy? I can’t write.” I still don’t think I can, but anyways, here it is.

When you receive information from your doctor that you’re going to die, you have been given a gift. The gift of time — time to say goodbye, time to say what you want to whoever you want, a time to “heal” whatever needs healing. Your “hope” is then to heal and not be cured.

Everyone else is just under the delusion that they will have tomorrow.

Hope — verb — to cherish a desire with anticipation

Hope — noun — desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment

I believe that when you’re confronted with a time limit, your thought process is different. The thoughts that you use to have, change. Some things aren’t as important as you thought they were and then others have come to be very important. If we all had that mentality, I think we all would live a very different life. Just ask anyone who has been told that there is no hope for a cure. All of a sudden, things change. Family, friends, they are all very important to you now. You want to fix relationships; you’re sorry for doing this, for not doing that. You want to show love and be loved. You start to look back on your life and realize you have made mistakes and you want to fix them, or maybe have wasted most of your time and money on things that just don’t matter.  Your desires have changed. You want to leave behind something that people will remember. Most everyone wants to be remembered, but not for negative things. You want the people you leave behind to know that you loved them and you want them to be happy.

So let’s live now. And I don’t mean “partying.” Make a difference in your communities, your families, your church, everywhere you go. Memories live on in the people you leave behind.

Polly Bjorkquist

International Falls