"Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows"

This weekend I received the news that my friend Leon Brauer had died in a freediving accident in the Maldives. Leon had worked with me in my previous job and we had become good friends. He quit his job to travel the world and work as a scuba diving instructor, believing that life was too short to be spent behind a desk. He died doing what he loved, living his life as few of us dare to.

This news lay heavy in my heart, and I hoped that the long run I had scheduled for that morning would help clear my head and give me some perspective. I ran by the water, dodging the tourists and letting my thoughts collide. I ran very, very slowly... Upon reaching the Golden Gate Bridge, I stopped and stared at the water... And I thought about death, and how it seems to sneak up on us sometimes. Did Leon know, did he sense it when he woke up that morning, when he got ready for that dive, that it would be his last one?

I guess preparing for this race and raising funds for cancer should have made me more aware of our mortality in general and how fragile human beings can be, but it was Leon’s death that made it all the more real.

I ended up cutting my run about 5 miles short. My heart wasn’t in it. I wanted to go home and be with Jeff and with our dogs. I wanted to call my mother and tell her that Leon would never make it to Brazil, as he had planned.

These are the last lines of the last e-mail I got from him. Rest in peace, Leon. I hope our paths meet again someday.

I really do hope that our paths will meet again in the future and that we will be able to sit together and share all our funny and tragic stories of what we were doing while present became past.

As always, i am thinking of you and wishing you the best- don't forget to enjoy your day...

Ciao ciao,
Leon

A sign hanging on a tree inside the garden of a Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand:
"today is better than two tomorrows"