A Brush with Death

i believe that changing the way you

brush your teeth

can change your life no i’m not a

dentist

as you said i’m a deaf and dying

educator

i encourage people to think about all of

their options

and come up with a plan that plan is a

gift for their family

when their family wishes they were there

most now a lot of you probably don’t

think about death and you’d prefer not

to

some of you actually probably think by

talking about death it’ll come to you

sooner

but i’m here to tell you that talking

about death won’t kill you

most of you have no idea how you’re

going to die or when

and there are some really odd ways to

die

let me show you a couple doozies from

history

a vat of beer collapsed and when it

collapsed

it resulted in a chain reaction of all

of the other vats of beer around it

which resulted in hundreds of thousands

of gallons of beer

spilling out into the streets of london

it even had a

15 foot high wave as it escaped from the

building

eight people died oddly

five of them were out of weight when it

happened

about a hundred years later was the

great molasses

flood residents in boston felt the earth

shake as a vessel burst and poured out

2.3 million gallons

of molasses into the streets of boston

yet again oddly was a 15 foot tall wave

and this time it went 35 miles an hour

through the streets

molasses 35 miles an hour

it killed 21 people

now i doubt any of you think you’re

going to get hit by a giant wave and die

but you might think it’s possible

that you could get hit by a bus

so knowing that knowing that you’re

going to die

i would encourage you to accept that

and come to terms with it because

if you chain if you do that it can

change you

when i was in my 20s i had an experience

like this

and it changed me i came in contact with

a deadly virus

and all of the doctors were convinced

that i should have that virus

so i went through the tests first test

was surprisingly negative

second test negative third test

negative the doctors were shocked they

were incredulous they had no idea how

this was possible

so here i am though many tests later

years later and still am free

but that close call changed my life

i thought about my priorities i got a

new mission in life

i made promises to myself promises i

kept

so when thinking about this imagine

if you decided what would happen and be

thinking about

when you might die you might feel like

you’ve got decades

of life left right and i hope you do

and imagine if you really use that time

i mean really used it

because the truth is you will die

i’d like for you to think about it this

way i want us to come a little bit more

in touch with that

it’s something we all know is true like

sarah mentioned but we tend to not want

to think about it

so now i want you to say to yourself

i am going to die

with me i am going

to die let’s do it again i

am going to die now

as a lively death lady i tend to be all

about humor and jokes

but right now i want to encourage you to

take a deep breath

and with all seriousness hand on your

chest

come with me i am going

to die good job

knowing that you can move forward

and live a different sort of life

you can also remind yourself that every

day

you are live it is a graceful wonderful

thing

and if you accept that and you decide to

really use that time

your life will be different i bet you

some of you out there have a bucket list

do any of you have a bucket list

fabulous

so a bucket list is a list of things you

hope to do before you die

i would like for us to think about those

bucket lists and how we can make them be

even better

so an example of a bucket list is i want

to be a millionaire before i die

or before i die i want to travel the

world these are big

lofty huge goals right

so we can look at them differently i’d

like to shift it first this way

instead of i want to do this let’s shift

it

i will do this so i will travel the

world

i will be a millionaire heck those are

still pretty big goals

so if we narrow it down even a little

bit more how about this

i will start my own business

and create an opportunity to make money

or i will travel to brazil

these are sort of like steps to the big

goals

but it’s even better to get more broad

and bring it back down into specifics

let’s just get rid of the before i die

parsed as well

so then it becomes i will

go to rio de janeiro for carnival with

sue

next year or it turns into

i will start my business by getting a

business plan together and a solid

network by may

do you see the difference it takes the

ideas out of the dream realm in the

clouds

and brings them into a more tangible

reality

what do you want to do everybody’s

bucket list is a little bit different

right but oftentimes they focus around

travel

experiences challenges and community

services

for my bucket list i believe and check

it out

every year so i open it up in january i

take a moment and i pick one or two

things

i put together a plan i try to figure

out how i’m going to work that

for the next year this year i’m going to

alaska

it’ll be my 50th state in my 50th year

but i didn’t get to 50 as far as the

states

by just hoping it would happen i had to

make step by step to step to get to 50.

stephen king has a great quote which i

like a lot it says

you needn’t die happy when your time

comes

but you must die satisfied that you

lived your life

fully from beginning to end now he talks

about death a lot so i’ll give him some

kudos on that

the reality is some people it’s harder

institutionalized challenges do make it

quite challenging for people to

live up to these ideas and goals

sometimes big

massive dreams can be restrictive but

even more so

if you can’t see an option in front of

you or even if you do see the option but

you feel you can’t get there

it’s hard this isn’t something that

everyone has the privilege to be able to

do

currently you have the privilege of

being alive and one of the ways that we

can help

is let those that might have privileges

that stop or impede them

to be able to live their goals and

dreams so if you’re up here

lend a hand the goal of course is to

shift our dreams and fantasies and bring

them into reality

now when i think about things i try to

think of things from a positive

perspective

of what we want rather than what i don’t

want what i need to do

rather than what i don’t need to do at

the same

time you just don’t always have that

idea and information

so every once when you have to look at

your life and figure out

what isn’t working what is getting in

the way of you living

your true life we have to shift at this

point in time

from a bucket list to a [ __ ] list

not that kind of [ __ ] list

[Laughter]

[Applause]

for this we have to look at the things

that get in our way

write the things that mad in our mind

the things that make us angry the things

that distract us and confuse us and just

get

in the way you know these things right

i know that for myself one of the ones

that was constantly annoying me is that

every time i would go to my closet in

the morning

it was packed full of clothes i didn’t

like or they didn’t fit

or they just didn’t they weren’t good

for my daily activity

like really did i need a costume into my

closet

so it made me so frustrated

it made me either feel fat but often

times it also made me feel

late because i was still trying to

figure out what to get out of my closet

so one morning i said [ __ ] it

and i dove in i cold that closet i got

rid of everything i didn’t like and only

things that were remaining were the

things that fit

and make me feel fabulous my mornings

are

so much easier now now that’s just a

trivial little thing it wouldn’t seem

like that big of a deal

but science has realized that really

those small annoyances and those little

irritations

do impact our cognitive function

so while we’ve been talking about that

part i bet you there’s something that’s

been going on your head

something that does drive you a little

crazy and maddens you a bit

matter of fact it probably made you feel

a little gross just thinking about it

one of my friends said it feels like

nickelodeon slime was all over her

what could you say [ __ ] it too or at

least

minimize its impact in your life

i want to remind you that death is

100 going to happen and life

is unreliable we never know when things

might change

remember one in four of us don’t make it

to 65.

we think that death is something that

only waits for the elderly

but it could happen to any one of us

remember there’s always the bus

so i want you to consider this

there’s not that many evenings left how

many weekends do you have

and more importantly how many summers

will you get to experience

i encourage you to live your life as

fully as possible

and to feel each day as being alive

one of the easiest ways to do that is

yes where we started

brushing your teeth

every morning i want you to take a

moment when you grab that toothbrush

and think for yourself someday i will

die

i have challenges in life but today

i am alive and then i want you to look

into that mirror

and ask yourself what am i going to do

today

to fully live

i want you to take a brush with death

[Applause]

thanks