Don't Forget to Live

As our book dreams grow into reality, I was reminded last week of the
importance of enjoying our lives with purpose. Helping a friend clean
out the apartment of a 90 year old woman who had fallen and been
hospitalized for a month, never again to return to her home, I was
struck by how like that woman I am. She made lists and saved
clippings and gathered new recipes, as do I. She had a closet too
full of clothes, with too many shoes, and too many linens, as do I.
She collected cookbooks and watercolor paints, dishes and glasses and
pots and pans, cards to send on appropriate occasions, innumerable
pens and pencils and paper, and creams and lotions to keep her spot-
less and wrinkle-less, as do I.

So yesterday I spent cleaning out my own drawers and closets and
cupboards, desperate to keep things neat and at a minimum, lest my
children have to do this for me some day in the future. But the
future is today. We never know when the unexpected expected will
occur. It could be now or 20 years from now. February is a good time
to begin my New Year's Resolutions, though, don't you think? My
desire is to stop spending unnecessarily, to give generously and to
live passionately.

Our book, A Journey of Letters, (due out in the spring) will perhaps
encourage you to begin writing down your own story, a legacy aside
from 'stuff' you can leave your children. Let's all learn to live
now, for tomorrow could be too late.