Andrea Gibson is onstage
telling us about the tumor
and the calendar
the doctor slipped into their chest
like a final love letter:
two years.
Two.
Years.
I call it
a kind of gift.
not the cancer,
never the cancer,
but the clock you can finally hear
ticking loud enough
to drown out
every stupid apology
you were making for your own life.
What a gift.
If we could all be so
lucky.
Not lucky
to have our cells rebel,
our bodies burn,
but to be handed the map
with the edge of the world
circled in red ink.
To know
with a kind of burning certainty
that our days are numbered
and the counting has already begun.
What a gift.
Because all of us
have an ending drafted in the dark.
We know this,
but we keep stacking boxes in the basement
to store our fear in,
keep erecting excuses
between ourselves
and the truth.
When does time become sharp enough
to cut through the denial?
A month?
You’d feel that blade.
A year?
You’d start carving your name
into every sunrise.
Five years? Ten?
At what distance
do you stop believing
the train is really coming?
Our time here is limited.
Still, we scroll,
we postpone,
we let the edge of loss
skim past our skin
a missing, like a hawk above
we refuse to look up at,
circling the prairie of our days,
waiting
to be noticed.
The gift is not the sickness.
The gift is the knowing.
Sensing.
Feeling the countdown
in your bones.
Living with the coming end
until every ordinary moment
turns sharp enough
to cut open into joy.
So let me ask you:
What would you do
if you knew,
absolutely knew
that your time on earth
was ending in five years?
Who would you love?
What would you throw away?
What would you finally say
out loud?
What a gift.
Here it is,
in your hands.
Open it.
Accept it.
It was always yours.
Nov 23, 2025
Nov 23, 2025 at 1:16 PM UTC
Andrea Gibson is onstage
telling us about the tumor
and the calendar
the doctor slipped into their chest
like a final love letter:
two years.
Two.
Years.
I call it
a kind of gift.
not the cancer,
never the cancer,
but the clock you can finally hear
ticking loud enough
to drown out
every stupid apology
you were making for your own life.
What a gift.
If we could all be so
lucky.
Not lucky
to have our cells rebel,
our bodies burn,
but to be handed the map
with the edge of the world
circled in red ink.
To know
with a kind of burning certainty
that our days are numbered
and the counting has already begun.
What a gift.
Because all of us
have an ending drafted in the dark.
We know this,
but we keep stacking boxes in the basement
to store our fear in,
keep erecting excuses
between ourselves
and the truth.
When does time become sharp enough
to cut through the denial?
A month?
You’d feel that blade.
A year?
You’d start carving your name
into every sunrise.
Five years? Ten?
At what distance
do you stop believing
the train is really coming?
Our time here is limited.
Still, we scroll,
we postpone,
we let the edge of loss
skim past our skin
a missing, like a hawk above
we refuse to look up at,
circling the prairie of our days,
waiting
to be noticed.
The gift is not the sickness.
The gift is the knowing.
Sensing.
Feeling the countdown
in your bones.
Living with the coming end
until every ordinary moment
turns sharp enough
to cut open into joy.
So let me ask you:
What would you do
if you knew,
absolutely knew
that your time on earth
was ending in five years?
Who would you love?
What would you throw away?
What would you finally say
out loud?
What a gift.
Here it is,
in your hands.
Open it.
Accept it.
It was always yours.
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