I read a blog post the other day about a guy who had finally purchased life insurance and it spurred him to write a letter to his two daughters. It was for them to read in the event he met an early and unexpected demise. So of course it struck a chord in me and my mind started to wander.
Everything this guy was saying was so true and important for his daughters to hear but it was also so damn depressing. I might steal his idea and do the same thing but it'll probably take me a month to finish the letter because of how emotional I'll get while writing it.
How do you write a letter that expresses how you feel about your family AND try to explain the certainty of death but the uncertainty of the how/when of it? How do you ease their pain without exposing the pain you feel just from thinking about "that time"? I would want them to know how proud they've made me, but also the expectations I have for them to do great things in the future. That's a lot to put in one letter.
Then I realized that while I am still here I can make the letter easier to write by relaying some of this stuff to them now. Why wait until they have to read it in a letter? The more I tell them how much I love them now, the less I have to put it in a letter for them to read later. Like they say, "why put off til tomorrow what you can do today".
It puts a whole new spin on procrastination for me. It doesn't just apply to washing dishes, writing or mowing the lawn anymore. So I'll make a conscious effort to make sure the girls know enough while I'm here so they won't have to wonder once I'm gone. And if I commit to that, then by the time I'm 143 years old (because that's what I'm shooting for) and they're 110 and 108, I will have said everything there is to say.
"Make sure your loved ones know how much you cherish them so that feeling stays with them long after you've gone" ~
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