Happy New Year 2011

I have been reading the book by Debbie Macomber Twenty Wishes and this novel uses the idea much like the Bucket List.  A list, not of goals necessarily, but of things that a person would really like to do or experience.  Some of the characters in the book remind me of myself because they really cannot express or discern what they would like to do.  However, I think it is a good exercise and I may just indulge myself by starting my own list.

On this first day of the New Year our family is gathering to celebrate my mother's birthday!  It will be a time of remembrance and laughter and maybe a few tears.  But, we hope to make it a wonderful celebration of mother's life, one lived in unselfish fashion, a continual giving to others especially her family and now to the workers and other residents in her facility.  She has shown us how to live and now with dignity, she is showing us how to die since she has been diagnosed with bone cancer.  She does it with a song in her heart (even though she cannot physically enjoy music due to hearing loss and cochlear implant), a spring in her step (even though she cannot longer walk without the aid of her walker) and faith in her God (even when she cannot always see ahead).  Her strength exudes from her inner walk with the Lord as she will say in her weak and slightly crackly voice, "THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE.  WE WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN HIM."