Goodbye to Mom

We made it back to LA on Thursday and met with my sisters and brother to go over the eulogy. Gene & I did go back to San Diego for clothes and I was able to print up the Memory Book I scrapped for the funeral on our long drive down from Canada. Download a copy of the pdf Memory Book here. The visitation was Friday and the funeral was Saturday. My sister hired a coordinator who did an excellent job. She left us with these wonderful words to live by.

What Really Matters—

Ready or not, someday our lives, too, will come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear. So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do-lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end. It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built. It's not what you acquired but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance. What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered by whom and for what. Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstances but of choice.

May you choose to live a life that really matters.

Later.