Wildlydj: The Life of DJ Lieberman

Remember you must die.

Three Months Later

It has been three months since my accident.

Three months since the moment my life split into a before and an after.
Three months since time stopped, and then, somehow, kept going without me for a while.

There’s something strange about measuring survival in months.

Not years. Not decades.
Just… months.

It’s long enough to feel distance.
But close enough that it still lives in your body.

In the way your thoughts pause.
In the way you notice things you used to rush past.
In the way silence feels louder now.

Three months later, I understand memento mori differently.

Not as an idea.
But as a memory.

Memento mori.
“Remember you must die.”

The phrase comes from Latin, from a world of emperors and victories, where even at the height of power, someone would whisper a reminder:

You are not permanent.

But what’s striking is that this idea doesn’t belong to Rome alone.

In Jewish thought, the awareness of death is not meant to create fear, it’s meant to create presence.

There’s a line in Psalm 90:12 that says:
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Not count our years.

Number our days.

Because when you start thinking in days instead of decades, everything shifts.

A day is immediate.
A day is fragile.
A day can be wasted, or honored.

Three months ago, I ran out of days.
Or at least, the old me did.
This version of me is still becoming, one day at a time.

In Hebrew, there’s a phrase: “Hineni.”
It means, “Here I am.”

It’s what people say in the Torah when they are fully present, when they are answering a calling, stepping into something meaningful, or simply acknowledging: I am here, right now.

Not distracted.
Not numbed out.
Not living somewhere in the past or the future.

Just… here.

That’s what memento mori has done to me.

It pulled me out of the illusion that I have unlimited time and dropped me into hineni.

Here I am.

Still breathing.
Still walking.
Still given another ordinary day that, three months ago, was not guaranteed.

There’s also a quiet truth in Jewish spirituality that doesn’t always get said out loud: Life is temporary, but it is also sacred.

In Pirkei Avot, it teaches that a single hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is greater than all of the World to Come.

Not because the next world doesn’t matter.

But because this moment, this life, is where you actually get to do something.

To choose.
To love.
To repair.
To show up.

Three months later, I don’t feel invincible.

If anything, I feel the opposite.

I feel aware.

Aware of how thin the line really is.
Aware of how quickly everything can change.
Aware that “later” is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe.

Memento mori reminds me that my time is limited.

Jewish wisdom reminds me that my time is meaningful.

And somewhere between those two is how I’m trying to live now.

I don’t want to wait for a wake-up call to be present.
I already got one.

I don’t want to treat life like it’s something I can circle back to later.
I’ve already seen how quickly “later” disappears.

So now, the goal isn’t perfection.

It’s presence.

To say what needs to be said.
To show up how I’m meant to show up.
To live in a way that, if my story had ended three months ago, I wouldn’t feel like I missed it entirely.

Memento mori is not about fear.

It’s about alignment.

It is the quiet voice that says:

You do not have forever.
So live like it.

Not recklessly.
Not destructively.
But deliberately.

Because one day, whether in 60 years or in a random, ordinary Tuesday,
your story will close.

The question is not whether you will die.

The question is whether you were awake while you were here.

Remember you must die.

And because of that,
remember to live.