Last Tuesday, I was sitting on my bed, working on my laptop, when I heard a helicopter just outside my window. Looking up, I saw the helicopter carrying a basket, as it flew to the rocky beach and craggy cliffs where I hike every day. Boats were zipping around the surf, and sirens were blaring, as rescue vehicles drove up a fire road onto the cliffside coastal trail.

Oh no, I thought. Somebody got hurt. And I sent out a prayer request for the anonymous hiker on our Pink Prayer Requests group and on Twitter.  People rallied, joining me in lifting up this person, as I watched the helicopter alight onto the fragile cliff while rescue workers retrieved a person from the helicopter and the ambulance raced away, sirens blaring. Dozens of people watched from the beach and the trail near where the helicopter landed. Then the helicopter flew away, the boats went back home, the rescue vehicles drove down the hill, and once again, everything was quiet.

Please let everything be okay, I prayed.

But it wasn’t. An hour later, someone on Twitter sent me a link to a news article, and within two hours, the scene I had just witnessed was all over the national news. A teen boy from Pennsylvania was with his family, touring California, hiking on our scenic but ever so steep coastal trail, when he fell 500 feet to his death, while his family watched. Rescue crews and doctors tried to save him, but he was pronounced dead upon arriving at the hospital.

I burst into tears. I don’t even know this child, and yet it touched something deep within me and cast a shadow over the rest of my day. It made me realize, as my Perfect Storm did but it’s easy to forget, that life can be over in a flash. I hike that trail every day. There but by the grace of God go I. I too could just slip one day and then – boom! Crash! Sirens…and nothing. I could be gone.

The same goes for my daughter, or my husband, or my mother, or any of you out there in Owning Pink. We just don’t know what tomorrow will hold. This family from Pennsylvania didn’t come to California thinking there would be one less person flying back home with them. They were probably planning his college life, wondering what he was gonna be when he grew up. Maybe he even has a girlfriend who is mourning him now. It’s all so tragic. And yet, this kind of thing happens (as Owning Pink blogger Kim Wencl knows way too well.)

It’s easy to get lost in the swamp of it all, but instead, I’m going to remind myself and you that we must live in the moment and cherish today. It just may be all we have.

Tips for Living Today Like It Might Be Your Last

1. Never leave any love unspoken. Love someone? Tell him or her. Often.
2. Life’s too short to carry grudges. Let it go. Forgive.
3. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you could be doing today. Are you living your passion? Do you have dreams unlived? Take one action step today towards moving you closer to the life you long to live.
4. Live without regrets. Know that everything in your life- even the setbacks and tragedies- make you who you are. Don’t dwell on what could have been. Focus on what is.
5. Don’t live in fear. Yes- you could die tomorrow- but you can’t prevent that. So go ahead and hike cliffs, hang glide, quit your job, ask someone out, dance naked, and sing on stage. This is your chance!
6. Be here now. If you knew you might not have a tomorrow, would you be living how you’re living? If not, change something! This is your one wild and precious life. Live it fully.
7. Feel all your feelings. Don’t stuff them down. Let me out, even if they’re not pretty. Don’t you want to know you really LIVED?
8. Don’t work too hard. When all is said and done, it’s who you loved, not how much you worked, that will really matter. Don’t forget the people in your life.
9. Let your freak flag fly. Strip off your masks, be authentic, and be ALL YOU, ALL THE TIME. You might not get to do it tomorrow.
10. Count your blessings. Focus on what you do have, not what you don’t. Live in gratitude.

What about you? What if that boy had been you or someone you loved? What would you wish you had done differently? How can we embrace the moment and really LIVE this life?

Living out loud,
Lissa