A Life Well Lived

Recently my friend Amy died of Cancer. She was young, in her forties, and this was her second fight with the disease. She had a husband and children who loved her, friends who will miss her and a community who feels the loss of her. Amy was a remarkable lady who lived her life with passion and love. I sat down to write a note in a card for her family, and I was stuck on what to write. How can one sum up in a couple of trite sentences what the entire life of another person has meant to you? She left so much behind, so much good. I have never another person who lived her life so much for other people-for her children, her husband, for her friends, for people she would happen to meet coming into her second hand children's store. For charities around the town she lived, for her church. She has left a hole in so many ways with her death, but she has left behind so much more in each life that she has touched with her remarkable, generous spirit. Amy changed people, for the better, in the way she spoke and smiled, in the way she would go the extra mile in what seemed the smallest things. She understood. Amy understood that what we leave behind in the short span we have on this earth is what is reflected in the eyes of others.

This is not the first of my friends to die at an age that seems too young. I look at their lives and my own and it seems inevitable that I think on my own death, how sudden it can be and how one must have no regrets. I want a life lived well.

I wish to leave behind children well raised, who remember their childhood fondly and have skills that I taught them that they will teach their own children. I play with my son, silly games that involve rolling about on the floor, being pirates or dinosaurs for an entire day and I see it as a day well spent.

I wish to leave behind students who think of me as a teacher who mattered in their lives, whose projects are kept on a mantel or by a parents desk. I wish to be a teacher who teaches things one can't find in a book-how to learn, how to think for ones self, how to be your own person capable of taking on responsibility for ones own life. I wish to be encouraging in all those things, and trusting so that those students grow up to be confident, trustworthy adults that will make a difference in the world.

I wish to create art that will stand the test of time, even if my name is not associated with it. Whether it be a toy that I have made that is passed down from father to son or mother to daughter or whether it is a piece of pottery or a painting. One thing. Just one thing.

I wish to write something that will touch other people’s lives and make them think, or help them in some way. I wish to pass on what small amount of wisdom that I have gained in this life.

I wish to leave behind friends that I have helped and loved and cared for who will remember me fondly and say, "That was a life well lived."

I try to live each day as if it is the last one, as trite and tired as that sounds when I write it. When I go to bed at night I want to have no regrets. I tell people that I love them, often and sincerely both family and friends. I give hugs to the children in my class and I tell them that are special and wonderful and I remark on the wonderful things that they do, even if its just coloring. I smile at people at work, at people on the street, in the store, at check outs, where ever. A smile costs nothing to you and you never know what kind of day someone else is having. I try to recycle, to plant things around my house that makes the neighborhood more pleasant. I watch the sun set, and if possible I watch the sunrise. And I enjoy it. I read to my son. I kiss my husband, well and often and I try to let the little things go.

I believe this is the way Amy lived her life. If I can be half as well remembered as she is, I will have lived a good life. I will have left something here worth remembering.