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One Last PB & J: Pondering My Mortality Between Two Pieces of Bread

Every day I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I assure you this is not exaggeration or hyperbole. I’m talkin’ every. single. day.

I’ve done this for at least the past couple of decades, maybe longer.

Most of the time I have one for breakfast or during a midday training session at the gym or as a late evening snack. It’s just part of my daily rhythm.

Yesterday I was up before the sun, assembling yet another addition to my now legendary gastronomic streak, when there in the predawn stillness it hit me: This might be my last PB & J.

I considered how many times I’d done it before; how many pieces of bread I’ve mindlessly slathered and stuck together, never really aware of what I was walking into on those days; of just how much was in the balance, of all that lay ahead of me.

I likely made one the day I met my wife,
another when I found out that I was going to be a father for the first time,
another when we bought our first house,

one when we got the job that would take us away from family in the Northeast, 
still another when I found out that my father had died,
one when I was fired from my supposed dream job,
yet another when I had a blog post go viral and change the trajectory of my ministry forever.

Our ordinary days have a way of lulling us into forgetting just how fragile and unpredictable it all is; how packed with promise and possibility every single day can be, and yet how close we are at any second to it all being over in an instant too.

When death comes it almost always comes as a terrible interruption, one that rudely intrudes into our comfy routine and wreaks havoc with our plans. It is rarely on our agenda.

People die every single day, and quite often those days look so absolutely uneventful, so completely normal, so stunningly typical that we never see it coming.

We are all usually shocked by death’s presence, never expecting that today might be the last of anything; our final phone conversation with someone, our last trip to the grocery store, our last snuggle session with our kids, our final day on the job, our final night on the couch binge watching a Netflix series—our last PB & J.

I don’t want to be preoccupied with dying, but I do want to be just mindful enough of it that it reminds me to honor life in all its quiet, mundane, ordinary beauty.

I want to remember the fragility and gravity of each second, and to live with a joy and gratitude that often escapes me in my day-to-day.

I want to be someone who savors the stuff that everyone else obliviously passes by. 

I want to sense the holy ground always beneath my feet.

Yesterday as I leaned against the kitchen counter in the quiet of the coming day and licked the spoon clean as I’ve done thousands of times before, I remembered a phrase uttered by then terminally ill musician Warren Zevon being interviewed by David Letterman.

When the host asked the singer if his soon-to-be fatal condition had taught him anything about life and death, he simply said:

”How much you’re supposed to enjoy every sandwich.” 

I’m determined to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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