A Single Sentence Changes Everything.

I’ve spent the better part of my career encouraging people not to become too attached to their own work.

Too many words: the editorial comment that shakes my core. I’ve invested decades as an aphorist searching for brevity. And still…so many words.

Edit.
Revise.
Rewrite.
Cross things out.
Better is worth the effort.

That advice has served me well.

Until now.

Because I’ve arrived at a place I never expected to stand.

I’m considering changing a poem that has traveled around the world for more than thirty years.

Not because I think it was wrong. Because I think I’ve grown. That feels different. The poem was written on a day when grief was doing the talking. More than thirty years ago, I stayed home from my friend, Frankie’s, memorial service. Instead, I sat down and wrote what I had learned from watching pancreatic cancer take her far too quickly. She thought she was simply getting older. By the time anyone realized what was really happening, treatment was no longer an option.

The poem that came from that afternoon surprised me.

It didn’t stay with me.

It left.

It found its way onto greeting cards, posters, bookmarks, locker doors, office walls, graduation programs, retirement gifts, wedding readings, and funeral bulletins. Over the years people have quietly told me it became their manifesto. Their compass. Their reminder. What an astonishing privilege for a poet.

Because of that, I’ve been cautious. I’ve edited it before. Years ago added a line that I changed from “lead or follow a leader” to “lead AND follow a leader,” thanks to the wisdom of my friend, Robbie. Funny thing, though. Many readers gently resisted. They preferred the original.

By then the poem had become theirs as much as mine.

That’s a curious thing about writing. At some point, it no longer belongs exclusively to the person who wrote it.

This is the poem that left my fingers all those years ago.

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.

When I wrote those final words, I meant every one of them. I was reminding myself not to promise tomorrow. I was also quietly living beneath an assumption I rarely admitted aloud. My mother died at fifty-seven. Somewhere inside, I had concluded I probably would too.

I didn’t.

Surviving your own expectation changes the perspective.

A friend often reminds me, “Two contradictory things can be true at the same time.”

Yes, live as though today matters. But also live knowing your choices continue long after you’re gone. My friend, Paul Wesselmann, calls those consequences “ripples.”

The beautiful part is that most of us never get to see how far they travel.

So after more than three decades, I’ve decided not to replace the ending.

I’ve decided to let it grow.

One sentence.

Just one.

Yet it changes everything.

Now the poem ends this way:

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
And live as if you make a difference. You do.

_{revised 6/28/2026©mary anne em radmacher}

Perhaps that’s what growing older really is.

Not abandoning what once felt true.

Simply discovering there was room for another truth alongside it.