There is a saying: when someone dies, we cry as we let them go—and when a baby is born, a spirit mother cries as she lets them go. Life begins and ends in mystery. 

We speak often about death, sometimes with fear, sometimes avoidance, but rarely do we wonder what echoes forward from before birth—or what wisdom the space between these sacred thresholds has to teach us.

We use birthdays to track time, but we often forget that every day is unrepeatable. Every sunrise offers us the chance to begin again. And when we allow the truth of our mortality to settle in, something incredible happens—we wake up. We pay better attention. We ask different questions: Who am I becoming? What still hurts in me? What truly matters?

Our mortality becomes a compass. It urges us to notice more—the beauty, the brokenness, the clock that keeps ticking. It isn’t a call to dread the passage of time, but to wisely honor it. Time can be your fiercest ally, the thing who keeps you on track, that whispers, “Don’t waste this.” When we remember we’re temporary, we start living like we mean it.

To prepare for a good death is not morbid—it’s a generous act of love for self and others. Just as we plan births, weddings, or big moves, if we plan our end now with clarity and intention, we have time to live more consciously with integrity and peace. How do your values shape your last choices? What legacy do you want to leave?

Far too many people arrive at death with unfinished business, unspoken words, and unlived dreams. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The life you live now shapes the death you’ll have—and the story you leave behind.