March 4, 2022 – The Fifty-Fifth Official Friday Night Beerblog

I met a most amazing woman this week. A friend of mine helped take care of her late husband and told me about her. And insisted I get her on the podcast. I was intrigued and went out to Facebook and checked this woman out. Eunice Ray is a force of nature. She is a 72 year old woman who spends a lot of her time traveling the country in her sprinter van. A woman of still many passions, she is working to fulfill her late husband’s legacy while planning out and fulfilling her own “endgame” as she calls it.

Eunice Ray’s Endgame

We met at Heine Brothers, a local organic coffee shop, and I was so impressed by her story. I was especially intrigued by her endgame plan. It is mapped out; how she will be spending the rest of her days, the goals she has, the places she will visit. More than just a list, she has begun it’s completion.

She explained that her late husband and she talked at length about their endgame. He was adamant that they get that together and get moving on it. And now that he is gone and with a gentle reminder from her son to get her ass moving, her life is just as full now as ever and she lives out all those plans she and the colonel made together.

The Regret Game

I’ve written and posted a lot about regret in the last few months. It’s amazing how you start thinking about those things as you watch a family member receive a terrible diagnosis and have to face their own mortality. Or perhaps you yourself get an unexpected piece of health news and all of those years that you thought you had to do all the items on your bucket list start to evaporate.

You swear that you will start on those items AFTER you retire, AFTER the weather gets better, AFTER you save up enough money, AFTER the kids and then maybe the grandkids are settled. The “AFTERS” pile up and before you know it, you are at the close of your endgame before you even started.

The Real End

As I type this, I am sitting at the bedside of my mother-in-law. A year ago she was a healthy 77 year old woman; thinking about that trip she wanted to take across the country by train. In May she received health news that sped up her life timeline. Today, with what seemed to be no notice, she has been given not more than 48 hours to live – all without realizing that train trip across the country.

Now, her life has been a magnificent one. And although she achieved much, touched so many, and has left an amazing legacy for her family, her last endgame tasks are left undone. In the end you have to be at peace with that and hope that it serves as a warning or gentle reminder to others.

Live now. Don’t wait until AFTER. Enjoy now. Don’t assume that there will be much time AFTER. Love now. Because AFTER is too late. Spend it now. Because AFTER may have limits.

Thank you to everyone for their support during this time and please hear what I’m saying. Sending out all kinds of love and peace and understanding for you all.

LLM

Link to Pickle and I and this podcast dedicated to Tedi Ellen Vaughan

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1594894/10191353