Posted 11:40 AM by Bonnie

What's Important or Life's Priorities:

Recently, while speaking with a friend in her 80's I was reminded of a Boston Public episode. She was talking about how she empties her cupboards once a week and cleans them and all the other things she does keeping her house sparkling clean. She even mentioned that she was glad her grandson had finally moved to a place of his own because the house was never clean enough while she had him around and now she can keep it clean to her standards. My first thought was, but you're in your 80's! Isn't there anything more important - like spending time with your grandson than on worrying about whether or not he left a plate in the living room?

The Boston Public episode was about a high school boy dying of cancer. He knew he was dying, but he had a teacher who wouldn't accept that this brilliant young man wasn't going to see graduation. The last weeks of the boys life were spent in a hospital bed and all he wanted to do was finish a book he was reading. But, the teacher, determined the boy would be back at school kept pushing him to study and keep up so he could take the SAT's or whatever... all the while the boy saying, all I want to do is finish this book before I die. Of course, one day the teacher went to the hospital and they were cleaning up the room. The boy had died and sitting beside the bed was the book - half read - lying open on the bedstand. The boy had his priorities straight, but this teacher who couldn't accept the boy would soon die denied him his one last wish.

When I was in my 20's, 30's, and even my 40's it was very! important to me that my house, apartment, wherever I lived be totally clean to the point of washing baseboards, cupboards, rolling up the carpet and polishing the floor underneath! Yes, my friends, I was a neat freak. Now, I make the beds, clean the litter boxes, sweep and vacuum and mop the floors. But I don't waste time moving out furniture and washing baseboards no one will see. I can do that when we move someday. I don't clean all day Saturday but spend time online playing scrabble, chatting with my sister on the phone, sitting and watching football with my husband and talking with him. There are more important things I than cleaning. As a friend who's a hospice worker said, when her patients realize they're dying they never say they wish they had spent more time cleaning their houses...but that they had spent more time loving their family.

I know this is disjointed but it does all fit and make sense. Yes, if you come to visit me you may have to move some newspapers off the couch, or move a box the cats had been using for play, but you will find a happier person than the one who worried about every dust bunny...oh, and yes, you will find those around now. I think I may start naming them. But if you ask my husband if he would rather have me cleaning the house or enjoying a game with him, while petting or brushing one of our cats, I think I can tell you what he would answer.

So, that's my missive for the day and that's what ZephyrBird thinks.