Make it so

“Don’t wish your life away,” my grandmother always admonished us kids whenever we were feeling antsy for Christmas to get here or summer vacation to kick in or — not long after the Fourth of July — for summer vacation to hurry up and get over with and the first day of school to finally arrive. “Be careful, or you’ll wish your life away,” she’d say, and we’d look at each other and roll our eyes. Time moved slowly for us then. All the good things in life seemed frustratingly elusive and far away, all those excellent adventures, the freedom, the realization of dreams we couldn’t even articulate but knew would someday, without a doubt, come true.

I can’t say precisely when time began to pick up speed. It happens stealthily. Somebody puts a foot on the gas, gingerly and then less gingerly, and before you realize it, a decade hurtles by, and then another and another. People enter. People exit. Events take place, memorable and mundane. Milestones, thrilling or heart-rending, personal or communal, stitch themselves into the fabric of who we are, what we become. We are of an era that will, in due time, give way to another era and another after that. A continuum.

Health care is a continuum, too. For most of us fortunate denizens of the developed world, it starts before birth and continues until the moment we close our eyes that final time. Increasingly, as health care providers grow more sophisticated at seeing the whole picture and working together, the continuum involves a true integrated system of wellness and fitness, preventive care and acute care, post-acute care and end-of-life care.

Not for everyone, of course. It is a tragic failing of America that not all Americans have access to all the care they need. But as I prepare to retire after 21 years as an editor at the American Hospital Association, I have immense confidence that the people we listen to and write about will continue to advocate on behalf of our health care field and for all the people it serves — indeed, all people.

Looking back over my career, I understand what my grandmother was telling us those many years ago in her gentle, grandmotherly manner: Life is short. Don’t wish it away. Acknowledge every twist and turn, every moment. There’s not a moment in our lives that doesn’t matter, if we make it so.