Have you ever forgotten an important detail?

I was recently sharing a story of my final hours with Mom. There were hundreds of eyes on me, and I was sharing Mom’s words of wisdom.

One of her words of wisdom was her admonishment to me to never grow up. Here she was…. Um, how old was she again? My mind went totally blank.

Um, eighty-something.

My nearly eighty-five-year-old mother was telling me on her deathbed to not grow up. To stay forever young.

I’m usually someone who remembers numbers easily. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to clear the number from my memory.

Having celebrated Memorial Day this week, my thoughts have gone to the memories we keep. What do you want to remember? What do you want to be remembered for? Are you living in such a way that you are creating those memories in your mind and in the minds of others?

When we lived in Seattle, we would visit my parents at their graveside in the Tahoma National Cemetery. With over 63,000 internments there, the gravestones create an orderly sea of granite. Often dappled with the bright colors of flowers laid at the stones.

It’s a remarkable and somber site.

Each of those gravestones shows the birth dates and death dates of those buried there. And my mind goes to the poem, The Dash, by Linda Ellis.

The fourth stanza of that poem reads:

For it matters not, how much we own,

 The cars…the house…the cash.

 What matters is how we live and love

 And how we spend our dash.

What matters is how we live and love… and how we spend our dash.

How are you spending your dash?

In another recent experience, I was filling out the paperwork for Joy, my nearly fifteen-year-old, to begin working with a primary care physician. (Joy’s birthday is tomorrow.)

Since moving to North Carolina, when Joy has been sick, we have taken them to Urgent Care. It was time for Joy to have a regular physician.

In the past, Martha has been the one to fill out the paperwork. This time it was my turn, and I felt ill-prepared. That became more and more clear as I clicked through the paperwork on the tablet. There were all the typical questions: age, height, weight, medication, etc.

Then there were questions that went back to the first days of Joy’s life. How old was Joy when they first sat up on their own? How old were they when they first crawled? First steps? First words?

To be honest, I had no idea. I was working long hours at a corporate job at the time, and I had not yet begun keeping the journals that are now part of my daily life.

It’s so easy to forget things. Especially when you’re not paying attention.

That’s true with the narrative of our lives. It’s also true with the financial accounts of our lives.

I believe the better the records we keep, the more intentional and aware we can be of the things that really matter in life. Rather than walking, or working, through life half awake, we can be conscious and reflective on the things that truly matter.

How are your records? Will they help you, and those you love and serve, remember what’s important?

Be sure to download Powerful Keys to Prosperity: Use These Twelve Prompts to Unlock Abundance.

Shine brightly!

Stef

(xe/xem)

be remembered creating memories Lasting legacy making memories Money Memories