Rachel Lopez Rosenberg: Appreciating the Time We Have

Rachel Lopez Rosenberg explains how dealing with death regularly allows her to cherish life more.

My work as a hospice chaplain brings me in contact with death on a regular basis. When I spend time with dying patients I am inevitably prompted to think about my own death and the deaths of the people that I love. I’ve come to see this awareness of mortality as a gift rather than a gloomy burden.

In fact, many of the world’s religions encourage this kind of contemplation as a spiritual practice. In the Hebrew Bible it says “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” There’s something to that, numbering our days. And maybe we are wiser when we’re tuned in this way. I know my life is finite and I appreciate it all the more so because of that.

I don’t know what exactly comes after death but I do know I won’t have a body anymore. I won’t be able to feel the wind on my cheeks on my afternoon walks or enjoy the sweet stone fruit that summer has to offer.

There are hundreds of these kinds of body-only experiences we have each day and how lovely to recognize their precious, fleeting nature. Once I start walking down this road, I come to accept that my relationships are finite too. I will eventually lose the people that I love and I don’t know when.

Having this understanding helps me to cherish the time we have together, however long it is. Our time on Earth is so short and yet the distraction of technology can make it difficult to pass it in meaningful, life-giving ways. When I’m on my death bed, will I wish that I had spent more time scrolling the internet?

Probably not. I can’t say for sure what that day will look like and what will be on my mind, but I do hope that I can say I had moments of feeling fully alive while I was here. And by that, I mean, in my body. With a Perspective, I’m Rachel Lopez Rosenberg.

Rachel Lopez Rosenberg enjoys pondering theological questions while walking around her neighborhood. She lives in Daly City.