“What?” asked my incredulous family. “Are you sure?”
“I think you should go for a second opinion.”
“ OMG! That is terrible. What can I do to help?”
The doctor had just diagnosed me with cancer that had reached its terminal stage. It could be a couple of weeks or a couple of months before I moved on to another realm.
While all the adults were busy being sad, a little voice piped up. “Grandma, if you are going to die, I hope you have made a bucket list.”
This was my little granddaughter Sherry. At six she was a precocious bundle. She was an observant brat, far too intelligent for her age and often saw and heard things not meant for her eyes and ears.
“Hush!” her mother immediately went to correct her.”Don’t talk like that to Grandma.”
But I was too busy laughing to pay attention. Trust a child to hit the nail on the head. While everyone was worried about me dying, she just reminded me that I had still a bit of living to do.
I thought about it for a moment. At fifty five, I had already done most of the things I wanted to do. I had travelled a lot. I had got the people in our society to stop using the compound as a dumping yard for garbage. I had managed to get funds for the animal shelter. I had a wonderful family who loved me..so not relationships to mend there.
In fact there was just one thing left for me to do. It was something that I longed to do but had felt terribly guilty of even thinking of doing. But now…
“Of course my pumpkin”, I said. “But there is only one thing left on my list.”
“What is it?” my son asked. He glanced at my daughter and she too nodded.
I looked slyly at everyone in the room and knew that at this moment they would agree to give me the moon if I asked for it.
“Well, since the doctor has asked me not to go out too much so as not to get exposed to anything and I get too tired to do any work anymore, I thought I would buy all the books that I have wanted to read but never found the time to do so. I just want sit back and read all my favourite authors all over again.”
This post was in response to the prompt for today :Write a story about a character who finds out that he or she is dying and has been knocking things off his/her bucket list and has finally reached the last item.
