Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief
Last Modified: 13:15 p.m. EDT, 15 February 2013
Tim McGraw‘s song ‘Live Like You Were Dying,’ serves as yet another reminder that each of us is allotted a certain amount of time here on earth. None of us knows the date or hour that we will be called home, which is why we should live as if we were dying.
We often pity people with terminal illnesses, but in truth we all have a terminal illness because living is a terminal illness. We all are born and will die, it is just that some are more acutely aware of their impending demise. How would you live if you knew you would die soon?
Wouldn’t you take the time to touch other people’s lives in a more positive manner? Would you hold back from cursing out a driver who cut you off? Perhaps they just received a report from their doctor that so preoccupied them that they didn’t even notice.
Would you care so much about office politics, celebrity gossip, jealousy, or despair over worldly, ephemeral concerns? This was a wake-up call for me, and a remembrance to not judge others nor ourselves but to start from where we are to live and to love!
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![Rehtaeh Parsons, a teen from Nova Scotia, was a gorgeous, kind, straight-A student with her whole life ahead of her. On Thursday, she hung herself in her bathroom. On Sunday night, her family took her off life-support. Approximately a year and a half earlier, in November 2011, when Rehtaeh was 15 years old, she was reportedly gang-raped by four boys, classmates of hers. The trauma did not end there. One of the boys reportedly took a photo of the act and circulated it among Rehtaeh’s school and community where, as noted, by Rehtaeh’s mother, “it quickly went viral.” Authorities reportedly investigated the sexual assault but claimed there was insufficient evidence to make formal charges. Rehtaeh’s mother recalls the investigation: They didn’t even interview the boys until much, much later. To me, I’d think you’d get the boys right away, separate them…. Nothing was done about [the photos] because they couldn’t prove who had pressed the photo button on the phone. [She was told that the distribution of the photos is] not really a criminal issue, it’s more of a community issue. Even though she was 15 at the time, which is child pornography…. The whole case was full of things like that. We didn’t have a rape kit done because we didn’t even know (anything had happened) until several days later when she had a breakdown in my kitchen. She was trying to keep it to herself. Tormented and bullied, Rehtaeh was forced to leave her school and tried to start fresh in a new community. Despite efforts, she continued to struggle, at one point checking into a hospital to cope with suicidal thoughts, anger, and depression. In an extensive post on a Facebook memorial page, her mother Leah Parsons described how the straight-A high school student became depressed and suicidal after the incident. “The person Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral,” Leah Parsons wrote. “Because the boys already had a ‘slut’ story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a slut. “This day changed the lives of our family forever.” Rehtaeh, who was a 15-year-old high school student in Cole Harbour at the time, was repeatedly bullied at school and “suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.” “She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” her mother told CBC.](http://ayannanahmias.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rehtaeh-parsons-17-canadian-rape-victim-commits-suicide-3.jpg?w=45&h=45&crop=1){kind=small}
04/03/2013 at 02:47
Hi Ayanna,
All of us need this reminder to make our life worthwhile.Thanks.This post brought to mind the quote “Dream as if you will live forever,live as if you will die today!”
01/03/2013 at 21:48
Great thoughts; pity not everyone will pause to read and ponder.