if you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do?

I said that I'd spend time with my family, eat a really good meal, go to church and sing, and then hop a plane and fly to peru and watch the sunrise over pablo neruda's grave (I think he's buried on a hill; I'd sit there) and die holding someone's hand with God' name on my lips, like Gandhi did.

Josh said he'd do a bunch of stuff, as well, but that he'd die watching the sunset and looking into someone's eyes. Because it's eye contact that really captures the humanity of it.

How many people can say they've looked into someone's eyes as they die? Very few, I'd expect. Most people close theirs; too much work to keep them open, I guess. But. Still. I know that everyone dies alone, and that there's very little humanity left in death, the actual act of leaving this world and entering the next, but there's such... civility, or humanity, I guess, in eye contact. Very few species can manage it without being threatening. For most, the sole act of maintaining a visual bridge between oneself and someone else is an act of extreme aggression and threatening. We aren't like that.

It's really beautiful, when you think about it. Physical contact is a plus to most mammals; we're conditioned to seek and maintain warmth, and it's often through direct contact with another that we achieve it. But eye contact? With no physical benefit? It's purely a recognition that we're all in this together.

And what a way to go.