our need for love....

 "don't save your pretty speeches for my cold dead brow...if you have something nice to say, tell me now..."

Why do we want things that we cannot have? This is a thought that entered my mind a couple of days ago as I watched the movie "On Golden Pond." Ethel Thayer in the movie knows that her husband, Norman, is getting older. She knows their golden days are rapidly dwindling. She has a zest for life and lives it fully while he is curmudgeonly, grousing to all who will hear that he is on death's doorstep. Yet it is when he does have an episode at movie's end in which Ethel actually thought it was "the end" for him. She holds him, telling him how very afraid she was that life was indeed over. She soothes him with words as she puts all of their years together into that final moment of caring and love.
I sat on the couch and just bawled! Like a baby I cried, because it is true.

 Why is it that when we are told that someone has an incurable illness, it is then that we make efforts to be nice to that person, to care for that person? Why do we wait until we are at the edge of  "almost too late" before we finally appreciate what we have before it is all gone?

Here's an idea: treat the ones you love as if you'd just found out that they have days to weeks left to live. Treat them with all of the care and concern as if you'd think they were on death's doorstep.
Sound morbid?
 Or...how about treating your spouse as if you'd just fallen in love with them all over again! Remember the care and concern you had at the beginning of your relationship, when it seemed as if you had forever and smiled endlessly at everyone you met--just because you could? How about doing that again?

Put it another way: guess what?

We only have today! Each one of us! You cannot predict when you will pass on and neither can I. Yet doesn't it seem as if we live as if we have forever? People that we should be keeping up with, we put on the back burner. Places we should go to we contemplate going "maybe next year." Things we ought to do, such as making that phone call to a friend, or writing that note to a relative...or even doing a good deed for a complete stranger...how often have you thought, "nahhh...I'll just sit here and play on my newest technological gadget!"

Opportunities are passing you by as we speak. People who need your words of love and support...say them now. Don't assume they "just know it," and don't put it off for another day. My husband has known a gal who lives in Montana since she was very young. She communicates regularly by e-mail and although he knows he should respond, other "stuff" gets in the way. "I'll do it tomorrow...tomorrow...tomorrow..." and another tomorrow comes...goes...and it's gone! No response. People, we can't treat others like this! We are becoming isolationists. Although we have the technology to send messages in the blink of a nanosecond...we forget that sometimes it still is better to make the effort of a phone call, a handwritten letter or even a personal visit.

"There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them." Mother Teresa

If you love someone, say it! If you have aspirations...do it! If places are calling you...respond!
Because, quite frankly, you only have this moment! So live in this moment...laugh if you want to, dance as if no one is watching and fall in love all over again as if it were your very first time.