Memento Mori: How Remembering Death Can Help Us Live More Fully

I recently had a scare with my 13-year-old dog, whom I love like a child. For a little while, I thought her time on Earth might be coming to an end.

I cried. I felt lost. And then I wrote.

I wrote about how much she means to me. I began thinking about the role she has played during a tumultuous decade of my life and how, simply by being beside me, she has offered grounding, safety, companionship, and the quiet wisdom of unconditional love.

In trying to prepare myself for losing her, I realized something I already knew but had not fully stopped to consider: just how deeply she has shaped my life, and what she has awakened in me.

Compassion. Tenderness. Presence. Unconditional love.

Thankfully, she is doing better, and it appears that it is not her time just yet. I am deeply grateful for that.

But I am also strangely grateful for the experience of contemplating her death.

It brought me back to the Stoic practice of memento mori, which means “remember that you will die.” It is not meant to be morbid. It is meant to wake us up.

What might change if we remembered more often that our time here is limited?

Would we think differently about how we spend our days? Would we give so much of our attention to screens? Would we argue as fiercely over things that ultimately do not matter? Would we hold onto resentment quite so tightly?

Remembering death can clarify life.

It can remind us to pay attention to the people and experiences that matter most. It can help us recognize what we are postponing. It can challenge the assumption that there will always be another day, another conversation, another opportunity to say what we really mean.

So consider memento mori.

Ask yourself:

What deserves more of my attention?

What am I postponing?

What am I taking for granted?

What matters enough that I need to stop saying “someday”?

And perhaps most importantly, who needs to hear what is already in my heart?

Hold the people, and animals, you love close. Speak the kind and loving thoughts you have while you still have the chance.

Not because we should live in fear of loss, but because remembering that life is temporary can help us live it more fully.