A Bucket List

 A Bucket List

Today it came to my attention my friend Kathy, who died last October, had a bucket list saved on her phone.  Apparently her mother found it after she passed.  I am always interested in learning new things about Kathy.  Some may find it morbid to seek out and learn things about your dead friend but for me it eases the pain of losing her.  I regret not knowing her more and I regret not having more time to spend with her.  I honestly thought her and I would be a part of each others lives, thus giving me more time to find out about her past, her dreams and experiencing her future with her.  She use to talk to me about what she wanted to do for a career, about how she wanted to live her life and how she wanted to have kids.  She would tell me about some of the dreams she had for traveling but there was still so much more to her that I wanted to learn, if only I would have been given the time.  I am grateful that her parents allow me into some private areas of their daughter’s life and I am grateful her mother will share things about Kathy with me, like this bucket list.  It helps with the pain, it helps me represent her better for the foundation and frankly it helps me keep her spirit alive around me.  I feel like sometimes I am her voice, and Kathy isn't done talking yet.

Her mother sent me the bucket list tonight while I was at the gym.  As soon as I got home, and when I had a quiet moment alone, I took a few minutes to read it.  Her list got me wondering, when did she make this bucket list?  Did she make it after she was diagnosed, did she make it after treatments when they thought they got all the cancer, or did she make it when she knew she was really going to die… and soon.  Then I got to thinking about my own bucket list.  

I have never made a bucket list.  Sure, I have heard people talk about their bucket list and things they wanted to do before they die but it never occurred to me that I should make one. I always thought it was kind of silly to have a bucket list, if you want to live your life then do it.  But now that I see Kathy’s bucket list I can understand what it really means.

Her list describes aspirations for herself, dreams of travel, dreams of what the kind of person she wanted to be and dreams of the life she wanted to live.  It was more than a list of silly or crazy things to do, each one of hers has a true meaning behind them and a true beauty that comes forth with each one.  It reminded me of the beauty and grace that she had when she was in the living and it reminds me of the unspeakable beauty and grace she has now in the Heavens.  Her list also gives me a starting point to my own list and a starting point on some things I can accomplish for Kathy.

I don't know what will come of Kathy's list, I do not know what will go on mine or become of mine but what I do know is life is simple.  You live and you die.  You love and you lose.  You have happiness and you have pain.  You have joy and you have sadness.  You have triumph and you have defeat.  No one is any better than anyone else and no one incapable of achieving what they set out to achieve.

I am going to make a bucket list.  I can only hope that when I am dead and gone that my family will be able to look back on it and remember me as fondly as I do when I read Kathy's and by the grace of God I will be given the years needed to accomplish mine, and some of hers.

Do you have a bucket list?

Here is a trailer from a movie a few years back.  I love both of the main actors but never thought to watch it.  I think now I will watch it. 

http://youtu.be/vc3mkG21ob4


~Mellie