What Would I miss If I Was Dead? Astonishing Beauty in Ordinary Things!

Shelly Fralic, a beloved Vancouver Sun columnist died unexpectedly in her bed at 68 years of age on May 31, 2021. Her June 1 Vancouver Sun front page obituary column quoted an article of hers from January 2021. In it she wrote about what she would miss if she were dead.

She said, “When I am dead, I am going to miss so much about being alive, I frequently tell my grandchildren. Not just them, obviously, or the rest of my family and friends. But things. Ice cream. Shark Week. Coconut. My beach cottage. Cashmere. The crack of a baseball bat. Spicy chicken karaage. Magnolia blooms. Fresh snow on the mountains. Rib-eye steak. Geraniums. A warm duvet. Lava cake. A brand-new lipstick. Heated car seats. A Maui sunset. A bird’s nest in a bare tree. The crisp turn of a newspaper page.

“For it is in the ordinary where our lives flourish, in the ritual and mundane where astonishing beauty is found, in chocolate lava cake and in a grandchild’s grin, in the realization that there is no great secret to life except that life is extraordinary.

“And if we have lived every day knowing this, there will be many things to miss.”