NOTE: I published a column on AL.com over the weekend which included a parable. I am now publishing the blog version of the parable on My Vinyl Countdown. The story comes out of this notion that whether we are healthy or terminally ill, we are all going to die.
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He not busy being born is busy dying – Bob Dylan ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding.”
A man is at the doctor’s office, hat in hand.
Man: How long I got Doc?
Doctor: 37 years, four months and two days.
Man : Whoa is that an average of lifespans after diagnosis?
Doctor: No average here. That’s how much time you have, I can tell you the exact second if you wish.
Man: No no. What do I do?
Doctor: Live! Live life.
Man: But now that you’ve told me the exact date I can’t stop thinking about it. Should I start making plans? There’s so much more I want to do.
Doctor: Well, you have 37 years four months and two days. Tomorrow at this time there will be one less day.
Man: AAaaargh. I’m dying.
The man ran out of the doctor’s office and into the street screaming.
‘I’m dying, I’m dying.”
A homeless person touched the man’s arm. ‘But you’re living. You’re living.”
The man stopped. He gave the homeless person a $20 bill. He went into a café, picked up a book and turned to a page.
A friend sat down.
Friend: What are you thinking about?
Man: My doctor said I have 37 years, four months and two days left to live
Friend: We are all going to die.
Man: Should I laugh or cry?
Friend: Yes.
The man looked at his friend. He looked down at the page with words by Henry David Thoreau.
He read: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
The man and friend sipped hot coffee. The heat felt good in the bustling café; outside was bone-chilling cold. The man looked again at Thoreau’s words.
“Live your life, do your work, then take your hat,” Thoreau wrote.
The man looked around the table, and underneath.
Man: Where’s my hat?
The man decided he must re-trace his steps. He looked and looked at the cafe, in the streets at the police station. He was driven by the words of a prophet: Nothing’s ever lost on God’s green Earth. She told this to the children. Time passed and he enjoyed life and almost forgot about his hat.
Then one day, five years later, , he spotted the hat on the doctor’s head as the doctor left the office one day.
Man: That’s my hat, doc.
Doctor: I know.
Man: Why didn’t you return it to me?
Doctor: I knew you would be back..
Man: But you’ve had it for five years?
Doctor: It takes time to get to the source.