By Benjamin Zellmer*
Marquette University Pre-Med Senior
Students from the Marquette University spent Spring Break at our home back in March to help out and spend time with the Residents. This blog comes from one of those students who was gracious enough to let us share it with you.
This poem is not about death. The message is a gift, a reminder of what is important in life. We are all placed on this earth to bring more love and more light into the world, each in our own unique way. Love, laugh, notice nature, pray, embrace one another each day. Live.
If I die tomorrow, don’t tell my family I love them.
Tell then I’m sorry for never saying that enough.
If I die tomorrow, don’t miss me, my friends.
Because the only end in friendship is in how you spell it.
So my loves, if I die tomorrow, don’t remember me as I was or how I would have been. But know me as I am.
Know that my presence will always be in the present.
And if I die tomorrow, it’s okay to cry.
But it’s also okay to laugh and smile. I love doing all three.
If I die tomorrow, don’t look for me among the headstones or graveyards. For my burial will be among the living.
Look for me among the stars for they are how the heavens peek through to see the earth.
Find me rising with the sun every morning. Even on the cloudiest of days, I will rise.
Hear me laughing with children for that is the language of God.
Touch me in each other’s embrace because that is where I dwell, in each and every life I touched.
So if I die tomorrow, live for me today, and I will live with you always.
If I Die Tomorrow: A Poem About Living