The Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? I do.... I think everyone does whether they call it a Bucket list or something else....

Recent events have .... That's how i was going to start this blog but as soon as I typed the words I knew they were wrong....It isn't just recent events this has been a year of events.... In the beginning of the year my cousin died...she was from my mother's side of the family...she was the first of "the cousins" to die and it was very shocking to me.... yes shocking...

you spend your life learning the lessons...trough the loss of beloved toys.... pets.... friends... grandparents.... it's not that the people that you lose are any less important when your growing up they just more or less fit into the lessons your supposed to learn....sometimes the lessons are especially hard like losing a sibling or a parent when you are very young ... but these lessons are a necessary part of making us into the adults we become....

I realize now, even as i go on, that maybe it's just MY life lessons....any way...all my life growing up I had all my cousins....on my mother's side anyway.... It wasn't something we thought about...it's just the way it was....then my brother died and he was the first cousin to die for everyone else except for us Warren's sisters....we still had all of our cousins....

I was 44 when Jeannie died...The very unexpected death of her started my deep investigation into my own mortality.... It has not been an easy road either.... who really wants to think about dying?... I keep telling my son and my husband that when i die I want them to Burn Me .... Urn Me .... and take me with you...I don't want to be buried somewhere left behind when life takes the people who loved me away from where I am.... Take me with you!!!.. I must insert right here I really wanted them to take me to a taxidermist and have me stuffed so i could watch over them (ha ha ha) .... they know that even when I am gone I am going to haunt them they just don't want to dust me and change my clothes...so I wont be getting stuffed when i die.....

All kidding aside....sorry if that offended anyone but, who do you know that could sit around and talk about their deaths and not say something funny?...Everybody needs levity to ease the hardest and the darkest times... That's another thing I have always said "I couldn't make it through this life if i couldn't laugh" .... I truly think i wouldn't make it without laughter....

The last eight days have been hard....The first cousin on my father's side of the family of my generation died and she was younger then me....That puts a whole new spin on it....Younger then me and her life on this earth is over....she leaves behind children... parents... sister.... friends... cousins....pets... it's hard to understand why these things happen at times but...

I like to think from what I know of Sharon that she knew something I didn't ... i mean about her own mortality.... from the conversations I have had with people and my own experiences with her... I know Sharon had a great sense of humor... she had to have one to be in OUR family....I know she was a fabulous mom...that is just something you can't fake...The emotions I have felt this week have run the whole gamut for her family....her sister has to know that if she needs me to talk to...to listen...for whatever I am here....her parents.... i remember how my parents were when my brother died... it's not a kind of hurt i would wish on my worst enemy.... the last communication i had with Sharon was a public post she made on Facebook... she said and i quote "Life is good. God is great" ...and then she said to someone who commented words to the effect of "If you believe in the second part the first part follows..."

how ironic to me that she made that post 2 days before she died.... did she know a secret? ...it makes me wonder...There has not been a day gone by that I haven't thought of her since I heard of her passing...before she passed away I in a way thought of her every day... In this last year as I have become more aware of my mortality I find myself praying more and always included family in a blanket type cover of "those i love and care for" in my prayers...

Am I afraid to die? No I really don't think I am...do I want to die?...someday.. yeah i know it's inevitable...but I want to live long enough to be that sassy old lady the Facebook quiz said I was going to be....or to be like my Grandmother who, at 80 something damn near fell out of the window of my mother's car as she tried to grab herself some construction guy muscle as we drove through road construction on our way to Kingston one day yelling all the while "Come on BOYS give Granny some sugar!!!" I don't have to tell you it was one of the funniest things I EVER saw in my life....the look on those guys faces to see this old lady leaning out the window trying to grab herself some of them was so funny i didn't even have time to be embarrassed....

now back to subject....Bucketlists....I have a few of them...

Son:

1. See him have children...I want to be a grandmother....
2. See him love someone with his whole heart and to have that love returned
3. Have him just once take the garbage out without being told...lol...just kidding...not really!

Couple:

1. Go to Greece
2. Travel
3. Start a business
4. Go on our honeymoon..(One night in Merrits does not constitute honeymoon)

Personal
1. Go in a hot air balloon
2. skydiving
3. live on the beach for at least a year.
4. Go to the west coast
5. Have the truck move off my lawn...(it's been there a long time...10+ years)

there are other things that I want to do...I need a lot more years....I don't plan for my Bucket List to ever be done....I hope every year I can add more to it....

to all the people in my life now and to those i hope to meet one day THANKS...Thanks for making me the person I am and for who I am going to be...