To Be Alive

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

I love this quote from Marcus Aurelius, and I’ve been trying to sit with it all week. Really sit with it. Not just read it and move on, but pause and feel the privilege of being alive.

Every week, I read about people my age or younger who have passed away. I'm still thinking about the little girls from Camp Mystic and their families. And this week, I also found myself thinking about Colorado’s poet laureate Andrea Gibson, whom we featured here in The Sunday Paper just a few months ago. Andrea passed away from cancer. I shared Andrea reading some poems on my social page, and I couldn’t stop replaying the videos and watching Andrea read these wise words about life, love, death, and the afterlife. Andrea was extraordinary. And now, no longer gets to be alive. No longer gets to write, to think, to love.