the before it's too late crusade

I do not know what is the right age to start making a bucket list as we all know that the word 'bucket' in this case comes from the expression: kick the bucket! Now that is if the bucket list is yours. However I guess there must be the ones of 'others' who are connected to you and that is when things become difficult. Ones own list often consists of finishing pending agendas, making wills, clearing debts - the financial ones - if any, ensuring to the best of your ability that things you have begun carry on smoothly if possible but here I think there is a tinge of hubris as how can one forget the age old adage: the King is dead; long live the King. It is us foolish humans who believe that we are essential to the game called life. The other extreme is the course followed by the likes of my father who believed that nothing happens without the will of the almighty. In that situation bucket lists seem quite futile.

However a list can be fun if it includes things like learn swimming, driving, flying should you make it in your sixties and such an exercise could add some spice in your life when your bones creak louder by the day. By the way swimming was NOT on my bucket list

When I look at a bucket list I made in 2010, I cannot but smile! Then came another one in 2013 after Ranjan's cancer that I still stand by and guess will, adding to it whatever else should come my way. This I presume will go on till exit time.

There is another list however which is not easy if not impossible to make and that is the one when your loved ones ask you to heal supposed past hurts. Easier said than done. As a dear and wise friend says: complicated lives are not always open to retro-fitting. She is spot on as you it is impossible to know what is really asked of you to slay inner demons you are not privy to. That is not all, there are part of your life that you have locked for ever as should you find the key, the result may be more devastating than silence. Our lives ware filled with coping strategies that we have evolved along the way and made so much part of our lives, that trying to find your way back may just be impossible. We are no Penelope and have not mastered the art of unravelling to perfection the piece we have woven through our lives to protect ourselves from hurt. The process of trying to do so may result in more hurt than healing.

Things have to be heard at the appropriate time and rather than play God, let us leave it to his wisdom. I remember how I found a diary written by Kamala my mother a year before her death and found by me 15 years after her death at a time when I was going through a rough patch and needed most of all my mama's lap to put me back on track. It was not her lap, but pages written in a yellowed diary that had survived many a spring cleaning waiting to be picked up when the time was right. How she had seen what lay ahead was uncanny and comforting at the same time. But more than that, she revealed a part of herself she had held carefully concealed as it might have rocked my boat and shattered the image of the perfect life she had conjured for me. At the same time, I guess she felt the need of sharing her pain with her only child and must have hoped that I would find these pages when I was strong enough to read them.

I did and felt the need to answer each page this remarkable woman had written. My answer was my way of celebrating not the wife or the mother, but the woman. I hope I did herb justice. Should you want to read this lengthy missive you can here.

Mothers do want the best for their children but often fall short not because they lack love but because they are so blinded by it that they are unable to see what is right.

My bucket list will remain blank but for this touching poem by George Bernard Shaw.

True Joy of Life

This is the true joy of life.

The being used for a purpose

Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

The being a force of nature

Instead of a feverish, selfish

Little clod of ailments and grievances

Complaining that the world will not

Devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life

Belongs to the whole community

And as long as I live,

It is my privilege to do for it

Whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly

Used up when I die,

For the harder I work the more I live.

I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me.

It is a sort of splendid torch

Which I've got hold of

For the moment

And I want to make it burn

As brightly as possible before

Handing it on to future generations.