My little brother Johnny and I were born just 18 months apart.

When he was little he was dubbed ‘a typical boy’ by his teachers. I think that was teacher-code for “school is not for this one”. And in truth it wasn’t from day one. On his first day he cried so hard, and made such a fuss, that my mortified mother took him home for a whole year before bringing him back again!

He left school early without any ‘pieces of paper’ and got a job in a supermarket. He lit up the lives of elderly ladies who came shopping for one item a day because they were lonely. He didn’t need a piece of paper to know how to make people matter.

It was his birthday yesterday, but he wasn’t here to celebrate it. He died when he was just 31 years old, with so many dreams left inside him.

I look at my twenty year old son today and wonder what Johnny would have done at that age if he’d known that he had just ten years left.

Just ten years… it could so easily have been ten days, or ten minutes.

What would you do?

What will you do today?

Don’t waste a second.

Image by Andrew Lewin.