If it was my last day on Earth

Saw this documentary on Discovery channel last night... It was called Hyperspace, and talks about Black Holes.

At the end of the program, the host (who was Sam Neil, the Dinosaur man, by the way) speculated about the possibilities of a Black hole invading into our solar system. It would virtually "eat" up all the planets, and our Sun. All life on earth will cease to exist. In fact, Earth itself would end up being sucked in, and would eventually disintegrate.

I then had this thought:

IF this scenario were really to happen, what would I do about it?

Well, obviously, there's NOTHING anyone on Earth can do about the outcome. The only thing we CAN control is what we choose to do with the time we have left.

And i wondered... faced with the inevitability of our demise, who would choose to spend his/her last hours with the material riches that he has gathered? For instance, would anyone choose to go hug his favourite, million dollar sports car? Or go walking through every inch of his 1000 sq metres of private bungalow, just to experience the happiness of ownership for the last time in his life? Or perhaps withdraw all his money and bury himself in the thick pile of cold, hard cash that he has accumulated so painstakingly over the years of hard work?

Though it doesn't make sense to me, I'd bet there are people who WOULD do just that.

But i know i will definitely not be one of them. When all things come to an end, all i want to hold on to are my experiences, my memories of those whom i love, people whom i care about. The company and thoughts of my family and my dearest friends will be what I crave to accompany me through the passing of my life on this Earth. Besides them, nothing else matters at the end.

I believe many (if not most) people share this sentiment. Even in movies (e.g. Deep Impact, The Day after Tomorrow, etc..) , we see that when faced with impending death, everyone rushes to call/contact/find their loved ones to spend their last hours with.

Which brings to mind this :

Aren't we all moving towards this end, every minute, every hour that we spend on this Earth? With every breath we take, we are moving one step closer towards the inevitable.

And we ALL know that. though we try our very best NOT to think about it. Nobody likes thinking about something as morbid as death and The End. It's a fear of the unknown. Something which i can totally understand, since i too am not immune to this fear.

But what I cannot fathom is - if we already know that the day WILL come (it's only a matter of WHEN), why then do many people still take their loved ones for granted? Little things that we can do for them, that we can say to them, we'd prefer to 'postpone' it, thinking there'll always be tomorrow. Simple gestures of friendship, like picking up the phone to call up a friend and find out how he/she has been or just to arrange to meet up for a meal or a drink, are considered too le-che and hence passed over.

What if there's no more tomorrow to do all that? Won't we then regret NOT doing all these while we had the luxury of time on our side?

And even when there's still tomorrow, will showing love and concern for the people we care about cost us anything today?

I do not know WHEN my end will come, but i do know that i am going to tell my wife i how much i love her today, and every day that i can. And I shall also make it a personal commitment not to take my family and my friends for granted.

Then, should tomorrow never come, i shall have no regrets.