What Gets Me Through Is Not a Bucket List

They tell me to live like I’m dying.

But I have four small children who still need their lunches packed and bedtime stories read.

In my life situation,

As the mama to four little people,

There is no option to throw in the towel

to go sky diving

to take a month-long trip to Fiji

to disappear on a shopping spree-

And while I cling to the fullness of life…

It races past me

Leaving me behind like an ambitious toddler trying to jump on the back of a really dodgy stray cat.

the cat slips through my fumbling hands and darts away

leaving me sprawled on my back-

holding onto nothing.

I blink and my newborn baby is now a toddler.

My kids seem to be growing up faster because of the hard days I have wished to be behind me.

Time can be savored to some extent

but it cannot be coddled

it cannot be stopped

it is plowing past us

raging onwards towards the future.

And as I consider living like I am dying,

My latest PET scan looming,

Facing the possibility of metastasis, and a terminal diagnosis-

What gets me through?

Knowing my children need a mother who keeps showing up.

The beautiful, heart-wrenching simplicity of routine.

What gets me through?

Seeing a future together with them

Birthdays, graduations, weddings, grandchildren.

I want to stop and weep and mourn all that is being taken from me in this season.

The loss of certainty that I will be there the next time they need me.

My forfeited “good health” and control.

But instead,

I sweep the floor- my kids hate cockroaches.

I read them stories- it’s a good distraction from the hard.

I make them dinner- I want them to grow up healthy and strong.

I help them with homework-I hope to see them graduate one day.

I rock the baby to sleep, tempted to hold her forever, terrified I will miss it, but knowing that when I put her down, she and I will both sleep better.

What gets me through?

I will refuse to let fear set the agenda.

To steal these moments.

What gets me through isn’t squeezing every ounce out of today.

Its preparing for my ordinary tomorrow.

My routines are a quiet defiance.

My changing of diapers, wiping of noses, putting out conflicts

Are a declaration that I am laying the path for future days.

Planning, hoping, praying—

that I will be here to see them.

Featured in Elephants and Tea Magazine, June 2026