Journal of a Living Lady #166

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

A friend wrote me recently, “Nancy, you have written a book and are about to see your son’s wedding. What do you plan to do in your next five years of being terminal?” Good question.

 

Aside from the terminality issue, what do any of us plan to do in the next five years? I hadn’t thought about long term goals in a quite a while. If metastatic cancer  weren’t an issue, what would I be planning for the next 60 months? Hmm.

 

My boys are grown saplings. Buddy is long grown up and beginning to bend from age. Yet, if the important guys in my life weren’t an issue, and I’m glad that they are, what would I do in the next five years? Just me. No health problems and assuming adequate finances.

 

When I was a young teen, I wanted to go to China and be a missionary. I guess I could still do that, but am a bit old now. I would surely be dead by the time I learned the Mandarin language.

 

I also wanted to be a writer, but am already that. I wanted to be a teacher, but have been that too.

 

I think I’d like to go back to school. My education seems so antiquated now.  The closest thing to a computer we had when I was in college was a ditto machine with a counter on it. I can do the basic things with a computer so maybe I could study something else relevant and useful. For the moment I can’t think of what that would be.

 

Goals are so interrelated to one’s philosophy of life. Why are we here? For what purpose were we born?

 

If financial conquest is the goal, then one must follow the pursuit of money. How much money is enough money? After the grave, will it matter?

 

If fame is the goal, then famous for what? After the grave, will it matter if I were a movie star, a sports celebrity or that I was the first chubby white female to climb Mt. Cleverest?

 

If fame and fortune aren’t worth-while goals, then what would be better? Loving others. Serving others. Giving to others. After the grave, will it matter?

 

Five years from now I may be rocking grandchildren. Then again, I could be kicking up celestial gold dust. Certainly at some point I plan to be.

 

Not that I am an exceptionally good person. I am well acquainted with pride, greed and other sins of the flesh. They are my perpetual enemies. If all my laudable works were heaped in a pile, plus a thousand more good deeds added for extra measure, that still would not get me through the pearly gates. Yet, I know that I will be there. I stake my life on the eternal truths of the Bible. Call it faith because that is what it is.

 

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nancyk@alltel.net         www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly