If today was your last day

So a girl I knew from high school, albeit not very well, has been diagnosed with cancer. And while she's not really my friend or anything, it still makes me think as I read her story and think about how life must seem to her right now. I spend so much of my time thinking about tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and the next ten years, worrying about this and that. How would it be to wonder if you would be alive for next Christmas? My life right now is, in a lot of ways, defined by how long until my best friend comes home again. How would it be to not be sure I would even be alive to see him again? While her cancer is very treatable and prospects seem to be good, it's still in advanced stages, and things are still uncertain for her.

I was still contemplating what this would be like when I watched conference today, and then President Monson's talk this morning hit me like a freight train. "Among all the facts of mortality, none is so certain as its end. Death comes to all."

It's true. Death, in this life, is inescapable. And I, for one, am not afraid of my own death. What scares me is the partings, the pain, the separation from those who go before me and those I leave behind at my own passing. But because of that day nearly 2,000 years ago that we celebrated just today, death is not the end. Because Christ sacrificed himself and then rose again that Easter morning, we, too, can rise again. Death is not the end. Rather, like every change, it is simply the beginning of something new.

President Monson also said, "To understand death, we must appreciate the purpose of life." Life isn't everything. The life I live day by day right now isn't all there is to it. This life is the time to prepare to meet God, to prepare to become something bigger, and when you look at it that way, death is a lot like high school graduation. If you've done your best and march across the stage with your head held high, doors will open and a universe of possibilities lay before you.

My goal is to live every day of my life as if it were my last; to treasure every blissful moment, to throw myself into every new experience whole-heartedly. Then, when all is said and done, I hope to pass through the veil of death with a smile, knowing that I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, and a crown of righteousness awaits me on the other side.