Things I Will Miss When I Die

A locally-made apple & wine cider from Truro, Nova Scotia

 

Here's a little follow up to yesterday's post about a bucket list and what we want to do before we die. 

In my early writing days, every so often, I did an exercise called “What I’ll Miss When I Die” and it was just a list of things, done free flow, hand written. Two things I loved about writing the list: 1) It showed me what mattered to me at the time, and 2) One thing led to another without me thinking too hard. 

Watch: 

- strawberries

- homemade strawberry jam on toast 

- toast

- honey

- bees

None of those are “to do” things; just things I’d miss when I die, as they came to me. Sometimes the list would be thirty items long.

In a way, it was a kind of gratitude list before “radical gratitude” was a thing. (Ah, me, always ahead of the curve without ever knowing it!)

This kind of list appeals to me more than trying to come up with, and fulfill, a bucket list, but than again, I’m introverted, lazy and not brave so – 

Every so often, over the last couple of years, I've thought about starting the practice again, just sitting down and making the list. What does it say that I haven't done it? That I never get around to it, never make the time to sit with my notebook and write a list that is essentially my favourite things about my life now? 

What I will miss when I die - October 9, 2020: 

- sunshine

- red leaves

- squirrels

- finches

- Paula Red apples

- apple pie

- raisin pie

- birthdays

- chocolate cake

- carrot cake 

- ice cream

- ketchup potato chips

- fried potatoes

- pink wine

- chickens

- feathers

- eggs

- books

- pencils

....and I could go on but that's less than five minutes of realizing how much I love food but also how great my life is and that I'm not ready to leave it (although if I had to, I would be accepting of that, too). 

Also, there is something about writing the list by hand, seeing one's own handwriting in ink, that makes the list feel more personal, revealing, and meaningful.