Читать книгу Before We Say Goodbye: Preparing for a Good Death - Ray Simpson - Страница 38

Both my parents got inoperable cancer at about the age of 57. At that same age I had an inexplicable and continuing stomach pain. The night before I went to the doctor, I could not sleep. The future looked like a dark, downward-sloping tunnel. I was ready to go through the tunnel, but I suddenly realized how much I relished the gift of life.

How wonderful life is, I thought – and we have only one life to live. There were places I would never now go to, and things I would never now do. I asked myself, ‘On my deathbed, what bit of life will I most regret never having savoured? What place will I most regret never having visited? What thing will I most regret never having done?’

There would not be time for much, but if I acted quickly there would be time to see, savour or do the most important thing I had missed out on so far. I thought about various things, such as swimming with dolphins, then I decided what was priority number one: I would go to Venice. ‘It would be a crime to have lived on Planet Earth without seeing that jewel of civilization,’ I told myself.

The doctor told me I had pulled a stomach muscle in the gym. I was as fit as a fiddle.