"WE'RE ALL TERMINAL. Some of us are just lucky enough to know it."In early January of last year as I was paying for my lunch over at the Carriage Crossing in Yoder, Kansas I happened to see that particular book for sale at the cash register. It caught my attention immediately, somewhat because I believe in the mantra to spend each day as if it were my last and equally so because I love the Tim McGraw song that was tucked neatly into the back pocket of it. So I wrote the check out for extra and when I made it back to my home in Hutch, I sat down to listen to the CD and read the book. Two days later I was surprised to find that this kid I knew from the "land of long ago and far, far away" had sent me a "friend request" on Facebook. One week later, I had made the first of many journeys to visit this "boy" named Mike Renfro in a far away land along the Western Slopes. Come next week on the 21st day of May, we will celebrate one year of married life together. Talk about "living like you were dying"....
My Grandma Scott was a dear and kind little Nazarene woman. She lived well into her 89th year of life before she passed away at a nursing home in Newton, Kansas. Bessie Scott had strong faith, unshakeable faith that when her time came to be called home that she would go back to Heaven and the God who made her. It was in her little house in Halstead that I first saw the picture of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before dying on the cross. I was just a little kid, probably no more than 5 or 6 but I remember so plainly that image on the wall of her house on Chestnut Street. I didn't understand what the picture stood for and I can remember asking Grandma Scott who that man was. In her sweet little voice I remember her explaining it to me and I just now have the biggest smile on my face. With a happy heart I remember that she would often times start out her conversation with me by using these three words~"Now Peggy Annie". Wow, what a nice memory of a nickname that she gave me, one that I had not forgotten evidently more than 50 years later. (Personal aside here, I am STILL looking for a folder that I had only a day ago :)
I loved my grandma and as the years went by and both she and I became much older, I can recall telling her that I hoped that she would live a long, long time. I admitted to her how much I would miss her when she was gone. Grandma Scott told me not to worry, that we would have lots of days together and then she said something that has stayed with me for all of my life, tucked deep into the memory banks of my old brain and even deeper into my heart.
"Peggy Ann, it's NOT that I mind dying. It's just that I like living so much!"
She lived. She lived like she was dying every single day of her life. Long before it became the popular idea it became today, now over 30 years since her death in 1981.
Her granddaughter, the little quiet girl who innocently talked to her about things like who the man in the picture was and what was Heaven like, wishes to do the same. You know I thought about her yesterday on Mother's Day and about my other grandmother, Catherine Brown. I never knew my grandfathers who died when I was just a tiny little kid. But my grandmothers were always there for me and when I had to say good-bye to Grandmother Brown in the winter of her 106th year, it was with great sadness. Yet time went on and on as I continued to live my life, striving to be just a little bit like the both of them. I hope they would have been proud of me, to know the woman I have now become.
My original thoughts and intent with this blog were to make it an ongoing "bucket list" for life and man, did I EVER do some interesting things over the course of a couple of years. It was fun, great fun! I went power parachuting, learned how to swim well enough to save my own life, made a 4,000 mile journey to Maine to see my first lighthouse, rode my bike on the Bike Across Kansas, saw the most beautiful sunrise and sunset in the world-not once but many times, learned how to sew something for the very first time, survived the saga of "old lefty", took a photo of beautiful Aspen leaves near Telluride last autumn, and a gazillion other things along the way. I took a slight respite from the idea of a "bucket list", a hiatus from it for the past several months but that is about to change. I've been working on a new list of sorts and in the days ahead, I'm going to put a new group of ideas together and begin to work on it as well. I'm looking forward to having fun with it and after having given up the better part of 3 months last year as I wallowed in homesickness, I intend to make up for the time that was lost this summer.
How about you guys? Do you have your own bucket lists? Any thoughts on what you'd like to do or accomplish in the days that lie ahead? Have you been thinking about a fishing trip to Minnesota but just never took the time to do it? Maybe you've been thinking that some summer you ought to make the drive out to visit friends you haven't seen in forever, but just never got around to it? How about that decision to go back to school and work on your degree or to spend more time with your elderly parents before they are gone? What is it that is holding you back? What on earth are you waiting for? When WILL the time be a "good" time? Just food for thought. I'm sad to realize the days that have gone by that will no longer be returned to me but I look forward to what days do indeed remain. With faith, I go forward and my prayer is for all of you to have faith to do the same thing. Have I told you lately how much you mean to me my friends? If not, here it is. You mean the world to me and I thank God every day for you all.
Take care and be at peace with yourselves and with one another. This life was meant to be lived and I intend so to do.
With my mom and Grandma Scott at Haven, Kansas~Labor Day weekend 1978. Two women who played such an influential role in my becoming the woman I grew up to be this day. I miss them and love them even still.
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