Here’s a poem I wrote eight years ago.

If I were to die today like them

how would I feel about my life?

If I were to get hit by a car

or crash in a plane

or drop dead of a heart attack

how would I feel about the way I had lived?

If I didn’t kiss my children goodbye

and never came home,

gave my husband a perfunctory nod

as he walked out the door and

never told him I love you?

Would I regret that I never went to church

to pray to a god who

I thought was just or unjust,

a god who I thought could

save me from myself

from my own actions?

If I were to die today

would I feel that I had cared enough

about all the people who weren’t as lucky as me?

Had I cared enough about

those who lost children or lovers

or were old and unwanted?

If I were to die today would I believe

I had done everything I could till not

one ounce of energy remained,

till I lay down at night exhausted because

I had given everything I had,

and when I woke up

would I still have hope that I could do more?

That’s how I feel about dying

I don’t pray to god to forgive me

I don’t think I or my loved ones are special

Or that our lives are worth

any more than all the others of us who have lived,

or that my beliefs are right and because of that

somehow my god will save me a place in heaven.

What I know is that this human race

is special because we are free to choose

to hope and to love

to move forward and to never stop.

Even when the atoms and particles that are me

reform in some unknown universe

human or other,

I pray that they will still know that it is hope

which keeps consciousness carrying on

and that I must never give up

or forget what it means to love.