"My friend, oppened the drawer in his wife's chest of drawers and took out a small
packet wrapped uped in rice paper:
"This, he said to me; is not a common packet, it's undies".
He throw away the paper and looked on the exquisite silk and lace.
"She bought it the first time we traveled to New York for about 8 or 9
ago. She never used it.
She keep it to a "specially
moment".
"Fine ... I think this is the right moment". He went to the bed
and placed it beside the other clothes she should wear
on the funeral.
His wife hade recently died. He turn towards his friend and said:
"Don't save anything for a special moment, every day you live is
a special moment".
I still think about these words, they have changed my life.
Now I read more and clean the house less. I sit on my terrace and
admire the landscape without thinking on the weeds in the garden.
I spend more time with my family and friends and less time on work. I have understood that life must be a unity of experiences to enjoy, not a instinct for survival course.
I don't save anything any longer. I use my crystal glass every day.
I take on my new jacket when I go to the supermarket, If I feel for it. I don't save my best parfyme for specially partys, I use it every time I feel for it. The phrase "one day..." and "one of these days..." are going to disappear from my vocabulary.
I'm not sure of what my friends wife
had done if she knew that she not should be here tomorrow which we all take for granted .
I think she had contact her family members and her closest friends.
She had maybe called some old friends and beg for forgiveness,
and
make peace for some old quarrel.
I gladly think that she should go out to eat China-food which
was her favorit food. This is these undone small things that bothers me if I knew that my hours was counted. It bothers me that I stop seeing good friends whom I "some day" should take contact with. It bothers me that I don't write the letters that I was going to write "one of these days".
It bothers me and make me sad that I haven't said to my parents,
brothers and sisters and children, often enough, how much I love them.
Now I'm trying that not delay, hold back or save anything which could enrich our life with laugh or joy.
And every day I tell myself that today is a special day,
every day, every hour, every minut... are special.
[Translated from swedish by Birgitta]