A prayer requesting more time

Dear God, After what just happened to Tim Russert, I feel compelled to say that, while it’s OK if there is a Maine moose out there with my name on it, if I meet my end crashing into its end some night before I am ready to leave this life, I will be madder than a steamed lobster.

You see, God, I still have stuff to do, and it’s important stuff. Some of it is personal, I admit, but it’s important to people who are important to me. Some of it is stuff that might be important to you, too. So you just keep yourself busy talking to Mr. Russert (I bet he has some tough questions for you.) and leave me out of your picture of paradise for a while longer.

I don’t want you to think this means I have not thought about my mortality, God. At 51 years and 244 days, I am old enough now to feel the finite limit of the time I probably have left and to know that St. Peter probably at least has his eye on me. That has made me stop living my life as though it was going to last forever (not just burning the candle at both ends but throwing the whole darn thing in the fire), and start living it as though it might end someday.

Everyone I really love, for example, has heard that directly from me. I have been trying to savor the things I really enjoy; the touch of my wife’s fingers running through my (vanishing) hair, the sound of my daughters when they say, “Hi, Daddy” on the phone, the thrill of great music, and the beauty of a rural Maine road. This morning I sipped my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee as though it was the last cup on Earth.

More than that, I have dramatically shortened the list of things in life that really tick me off, which means I am wasting a lot less of the time I have left being ticked off. I try not to get my intestines in a twist over things I cannot change. If the woods along the golf course somehow suck my tee shot into the trees instead of allowing it to land right in the middle of the fairway where I aimed it, I now spend only four or five seconds thinking about beating my driver to death on the nearest rock.

I have dramatically lengthened the list of things in my life that give me great pleasure, which means I spend a lot more of the time I have left being happy. I enjoy watching children with their parents, dogs with their tennis balls, and the way the two sides of a cut in someone’s lip will match up perfectly if I put the stitches in just the right place.

Oh yeah, I’ve gotten smarter too and more effective making my corner of the world a little bit better. I have learned that enthusiasm for a cause is a great thing but cannot be the only thing if you want success in its pursuit. You must have partners, which means compromise, and if you want people to work with you tomorrow you must treat them respectfully through your disagreement with them today. I’ve learned that the slow, steady application of pressure over the long haul for something good can produce great changes in far less time than a lifetime. I have used these skills and others to help bring medical helicopters and mandatory seat belts to Maine, babies into this world, extra years to a few patients, and some other stuff that is pretty good even by your standards.

All of that means the two of us now get more bang for the buck every day of the rest of my life than we did for the previous days of my life, when I was younger, dumber and thought my only purpose on this earth was to keep my own life coming up lucky sevens. We have done pretty well with me, God, so don’t waste it all now by doing the Russert to me.

Right now the only thread I see hitching me to my mortality is the simple thread of time. I know it is shorter now, but it still disappears ahead into the mist of my remaining life so that I don’t know how much time I have left. That is a luxury I cannot expect to continue, but also an unknown I like.

Someday you will weave in the dark thread of a cancer or heart attack, a thread that I will see clearly tied to my end, and when you do, I promise to be ready. Just not anytime soon, OK? I have stuff to do, as I said, like finding out if a bunch of cows lying down in the field really means it is going to rain.

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.