Often times, it’s those who are courageously facing death who remind us how precious and beautiful life is. It is those who know their time on earth is limited who share their peace with the world.
At one point, Shalin was just a stranger in a group of 40 individuals with whom I’d be spending the next 11 weeks in close proximity. As time chugged along, the Peace Corps Peru 23 training group became an odd family, and Shalin an integral part. We watched him as he fell more and more ill and were devastated the night we found out he would be medically evacuated.
I admire his bravery in the face of death, the peace he has found with his time on this earth. Even more so, I admire his story and desire to share his outlook on life with others.
While we often don’t know when we’ll take our last breath, we spend too much time worrying about the future. We predict, we stress, but we don’t enjoy. We don’t know when a loved one will be taken from us, yet we often live unappreciative of his presence.
I, myself, am very guilty of not living in the present, of taking friends, family and opportunities for granted. Numerous times, I have placed a higher priority on unimportant things.
Like myself, most of us could learn to change our perspectives, our outlooks on life. We can be more appreciative of the things that go right in our lives, the relationships we have. And we can certainly learn to look at those daily bumps in the road, those tiny frustrations as trivial in the grand picture, the greater scheme of things. We can prioritize higher what we truly value.
I’ll be participating in Sunsets for Shalin, the movement “to show gratitude and live to the fullest every day” and I encourage others, loved ones and strangers alike, to do the same. We don’t know when our beautiful life will be taken from us, but we should live each day grateful for what time we do have. With this in mind, I also will make more time to tell those whom I value how much I cherish our relationship. The world can never be filled with too much love, and I’d rather wear my heart on my sleeve and take risks than live with regret.
Here is a glimpse of what Shalin wrote in reflection of his diagnosis with terminal cancer. The whole thing can be found on the Huffington Post website here.
Thank You, Cancer (by Shalin Shah)
Most people who I share my story with react the same way: “that’s so sad” or “but you’re so young, you still have so much more life ahead of you” or “I’m so sorry, this is so unfair.” And at first — yes, I thought so too. I thought my cancer was the most unfair trick life could play on me. I mean, having just graduated college, I was at the point where I could finally start life in the ‘real world’ and get a job and become independent. At a time when all of my friends were starting new jobs and moving to different places all around the world, I was stuck at home back with my parents receiving cancer treatment. Seemed pretty unfair to me.
Looking back now, I guess it has been a pretty crazy past year for me: studying abroad in Paris, graduating with honors from USC, training for the Peace Corps in Peru, being diagnosed with non-terminal cancer, learning I had terminal cancer…
For me, Feb. 5 was the day every cancer patient plays out in their heads over and over again and hopes never to actually have to experience. This was the day my doctor informed me and my parents that my cancer had spread to my brain and was now medically incurable, and that I had only a few months to live. In all of the hundreds of playbacks in my head of how I would take the news, I was always sobbing uncontrollably, utterly devastated…but the reality was far different from how I would have expected to react to the news. Sure, for the first five minutes I was sobbing uncontrollably as I had imagined, but then suddenly an overwhelming calm swept over me.
To learn more about Shalin and Sunsets for Shalin, visit the Facebook Page.
UPDATE: It is with a heavy heart that I share the news of Shalin’s passing on May 16, 2015 at 7:13 PM PDT. May his legacy and teachings continue.
Brittany McGee 