Dying to live

I'm going to die.

I've only just really realised this. It never seemed like a real possibility before. But, I'm going to die and that knowledge has a massive impact on how I want to live.

The suddeness of my mum's - what shall I call it? - demise? life's end? shocked me to my core. One minute she is talking to me on the phone, laughing and telling me she loves me, and then goes to read to my daughters and put them to bed. An hour later, it's all over. Her life as we all knew it. One minute she was involved in every aspect of my life, and the next, she became someone who doesn't know my name.

Now that I know my death is not only a possibility but a definite, I want to make sure I'm really living. I want to be with my girls every day of their lives although I know (I hope) I won't. So I have to make the days I do have, count. I want to write the bloody novel that is haunting me at night. I want to stop being tired and start being energetic. I want to eat as much chocolate as I can and still be a size ten (OK, that's just fantasy I know, but part of living is dreaming surely?)

Admittedly at the moment I already feel half dead - sleep might be something we can do when we're dead, but lack of it makes living pretty hard. BUT, Ruby has slept through for the last three nights, so I'm holding my breath in the belief that we might finally be seeing the light...
I'm dying, but I'm also living. And maybe one of the things I will take from the last five months is that every day I'm living, I'm appreciating the fact that I'm dying - and that is inspiring me to live better.