Making Life Count

My salutation for every birthday wish that I send says, "Be sure to make it count."  It usually prompts a great deal of response and some very interesting, yet positive comments from those who receive it. Routinely someone will tell me that they never really thought about "making it count," or "I love it," to "Thanks for the reminder, I will..."

Let's face it, life gets busy for all of us.  The day or week we set out to have and the things we plan to do, fall by the way side to take care of 'busy." I have recently blogged about it, so I will try not to repeat myself.  Regardless, being 'busy' can keep us from savouring, experiencing and most importantly enjoying the moments we share with our loved ones.  It happens daily; we have something important on our mind to do, like 'I am going to call the kids, dad, my brothers, or sister when I get home' and then something or exhaustion get in the way and we find that we did not cease the moment. Despite my efforts to the contrary, it has happened to me again this week.  When did it hit me?  Last night...

My dad called me last night on my cell phone as I walked through the door to check on me, because I have been out of my routine communication.  Like most of you, it was a brutal day and just like the last couple of weeks too.  It has been as if the flood gates have opened and there are not enough hours in the day to do all that I want or need to get done.  So, what do we do?   What I did, we fail to cease the moment...and so it goes.

So, what was important about last night's call?  One, I found myself multi-tasking through the call and talking about how busy I have been.  Funny, but for a moment it was as if I was on the other end of the line listening to myself and thought to myself, this can't sound like I am paying attention to dad.  So, I stepped back, sat down and took time to take in the moment with him.  After all, he made the effort to reach out to me to check in and I needed to be present and hear what he had to say.   I need and wanted to really listen to the message, so that my being 'busy" did not consume the moment or become obvious to my dad. 

To begin with our calls are never long and that is perfectly fine, but he had a reason for calling and his message, while nothing earth shattering, was important to him and he wanted to share it with me.  He aslo wanted to see how my family was doing, specifically Chenin, because her step father is ill and Steve, because his dad has been ill.  So, I made sure I was paying attention, not just because this was my dad,  but becasue the message was about family and I needed to take my own advice and 'make life count' in that moment.  As there would always be another moment in time available to me in order to feed the pets or get that chore done that had been sitting since Sunday. This moment needed to be for me and my dad.

It was a very simple wake up call for me last night, about how busy my life had become recently. that I needed to reach out and connect with all of my family today, and I am almost there.

So, yes, we feel as though we are busy these days, but that's not new to any of us.  What I ask you to do is make the moment count for yourselves, your friends and families. For some of you they are the same people.  We have no guarantees with this precious gift called life, so do your very best today to go out and 'make it count."