“It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

I have watched my mother dwindle, her memories slipping through her fingers like sand, and it’s heartbreaking, but up until now, she has lived her life with a vibrancy that many others simply dream of.  She got out there in the world and did shit; she put herself through college, raised kids on her own, rose to the top level of management in her field, assisted with organ donation saving lives of others while comforting those in times of loss.  My mother lived her life in the middle of the action – not sitting on the sidelines.

That’s how I want to live my life.  I want to achieve things.  I want to do more than I thought I was capable of.  I want to love those around me long and hard.  I want to give my children something of myself before I leave this planet.  I want to leave this world knowing that those close to me never doubted the depth of my love.

I want to truly live my life in the thick of it, and when I close my eyes for the last time, I want to slip away in the knowledge that I truly lived.