A precious keepsake
September 18, 2008 (Thursday)
While watching television last night, I saw a testimonial about an automobile agency. The couple had been treated well by the salespersons when they bought a car. I thought, that lady looks like…like..it is..it’s June! Or is it? Is it June? Then my eyes turned right, and there beside her was Pete, her husband. No doubt. This was June and Pete, my friends. I was surprised by what I was seeing. I had not expected to see my friends on T.V.
Life is just packed full of surprises, isn’t it? I conducted a funeral for a lady who had written a letter to her children, to be read by them upon her death. She had lost her husband when she was only 50, and 18 years later was in very bad health, so she sat down and wrote a letter to her offspring. She fully expected to die shortly, but she lived another eight years, continuing to add entries to the letter. Her first entry expressed a desire to keep on living long enough to get things done that she had planned and hoped to do. Five years of entries completed the letter, a sentence at a time. She wrote no more during the last three years of her life, but her words to her children were poignant and touched my heart.
Later on, she wrote, “You have always made me so very proud .. your dad would have been so proud.” Her final entry three years before her death was praise for her children and assurance that she loved them.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have such a letter from someone you loved in life? Perhaps it would be even better to write such a letter and leave it for your loved ones. More than we realize, we need to express our love for each other.