Why Just Honor The Dead, Love The Living Instead

I sat in that Church and looked at all these “busy” people….people who did not have 15 minutes to give her in her LIFE, but they spent an hour at a Memorial Service, thirty minutes at a Gravesite and two hours at a Free Lunch….Yes, it made me weep.

When someone dies it’s too late.  Take the time (15 minutes if that’s all you have) and call that person who deserves to know you love them.  Don’t be one of those people who say at a Funeral, “I wish I would have said…..”  SAY IT.

This year, give a gift that lasts forever.  Write a Letter to someone you love.  I started this years ago and it is worth more than Waterford Chrystal or Diamond Earrings or Lunch at the Spa….it will let those you love HEAR it and KNOW it….and they can read that letter over and over whenever they feel lonely or alone.  Write letters to your children every year on their birthdays and if they are too young put them away for later.  Imagine how calming it would have been to some of the kids whose parents were taken from them on Sept 11th to have letters in a shoebox that Mommy or Daddy wrote to them telling them how important they were or how they felt the day they were born or how no matter what they will ALWAYS LOVE THEM.

When my mother passed away, I cleaned out her little room at the “home”.  In the bottom drawer of the nightstand next to her hospital bed I found a stack of cards and letters bound together with a rubber band.  I sat on the floor and again I wept.  My mother had every card and every letter that I ever sent her….she had every little homemade construction paper card the boys had made for her.  I re-read my words….words that I had shared with my mom over the years.  Letters that told her how I was sorry for something or that I was thankful for her or that I appreciated the way she raised me.  Letters that told my mom how much I loved her and how having my kids made me love her more because I finally “got it”.  These letters took me back….and I know that each one took me no more than 15 minutes to write….15 minutes out of my busy day of work and husband and household chores and raising kids….15 minutes to tell her when she was alive that I loved her forever. 

Finding these “treasures” tucked away in that drawer that was an arms reach from her bed told me that she “visited” them often and so my 15 minutes gave her a lifetime of hugs….and now that she is gone those 15 minutes are still giving back.  I keep some of those letters and cards tucked away in the nightstand next to my bed (some I buried with her) and when I need to “talk” to my mother I can take them out and remember that I have no need to eulogize my mother…I have no desire to stand on an altar and tell everyone else how much I loved her…..I can rest my weary head at night knowing that I honor her in death….BUT….I LOVED HER WHILE SHE WAS LIVING

Take 15 minutes today and write someone you love.  You’ll be SO happy you did.

Trish