Excellence Reporter: Melissa, what is the meaning of life?

Melissa Coleman: The meaning of life is found in death. This is not a morbid statement.

When we accept the fact that none of us are getting out of here alive, there is nothing to do but live and love fully now. This is what people who have a terminal condition tell us.

News flash: We all, in fact, have a terminal condition.

My sister, Heidi, died at age three when I was seven. I’m still trying to live as fully as she did in those three years. Children live with honesty and conviction.

As I grew up, I learned to be afraid of living, of dying. But when I think of my sister, and the fact that I could die any moment, I’m reminded to live and love now with the honestly and conviction of her three short years. Because why the hell not?

When we die with each exhale, we are reborn with each inhale. In death we find life.

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~Melissa Coleman is the author of This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family’s Heartbreak, a New York Times bestselling memoir about growing up during the 1970s back-to-the-land movement. Her writing has also appeared in publications including the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler.
www.MelissaColeman.com

Copyright  2016 Excellence Reporter
Photo credit: William Geisler