Unbelievably, I’ve arrived at the end of the Year to Live project. I’ve learned from others that the “dissolution of the body” meditation which symbolically closes the class is a powerful one. Frankly, I’m scared of it. One person I know who experienced it said that this exercise is so visceral that he actually lost control of some, ah, bodily function when he did it.

What I did not write about was the all-too-real end-of-life journey of my earliest childhood friend Marisa, who was courageously facing metastatic cancer while I went about my hypothetical journey.

This month marks a year since my one year to live project came to an end. And a year since my close childhood friend Marisa died of metastatic breast cancer…. I have some good news to share. I’ve just come back from Marisa’s brother & sister-in-law’s baby shower. Marisa would have been an amazing aunt to this little one, and I like to imagine her smiling at all of us.

We all have some form of magical thinking when it comes to dying. It’s how we attempt to gain control over our fears. My particular brand of magical thinking is that if you eat well, exercise and meditate, you will most likely have a long and healthy life. I know this is not entirely rational…

A couple of years ago I blogged regularly about my Year to Live project. The 365 day experiment profoundly changed the way I think about life, even to this day. Every once in a while, something fantastic and year-to-live-y grabs my attention and makes me want to jump up and share it with you.

This beautiful piece about an ailing doctor who makes his own coffin appeared in the New York Times over the weekend. Once again I was struck by the realization that honest reflection on our own death is more about living than about dying.

“Statistically my time was up at least a year ago. But I’m still here,” wrote my childhood friend Marisa at the top of her Facebook note “25 Random Things About Me.” I had read and re-read her list so many times I’d nearly committed it to memory.