Bucket List

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about “Bucket Lists” - those things people want to do before they “kick the bucket.” It’s good to have goals.

My friend, Debbie, is leaving soon on a trip to Sweden with her husband’s family as her father-in-law has it on his Bucket List to visit the farms where his grandparents lived before settling in Skagit County.  They plan to visit family members and learn a little more about their Swedish roots.  I’d say if a person is going to make a Bucket List, this should be the first thing on it.  It was on mine.

I’ve been able to visit all eight Norwegian farms where my grandparent’s grandparents came from, as well as the parcels of land they homesteaded in North Dakota.  On a few of the farms, I got a strange sensation as I stood there, looking out over the land our family had lived on for generations.  It was more than a sense of connection - it was almost spiritual.   As Americans, I think we miss out a little on the kind of cultural identity I’ve seen in other countries.  We’re the new kid on the block, with a very short history, and our culture is so diverse, I find it hard to identify with any of it. 

It was magical when I visited the farm in Norway where my mother’s maiden name comes from and met relatives still living there.  Buildings still stood from the 1600s.  Old tools my ancestors used were still in the shed.  I held a letter written by my great-great-great grandfather in 1852 telling his younger brother in Norway he could keep the farm, sell it, or give it away, as he was never leaving America.  It felt like walking into my own living history museum. 

Bucket Lists are good no matter what they contain.  At a memorial service I recently attended, the family of the deceased talked about how Lee had lived much longer than anyone thought he would, because of his Bucket List.  

Lee endured dialysis three times a week for years because he so wanted to make it to his 80^th birthday – a feat no one else in his family had ever achieved.  As he approached the day, his health was failing fast but he recuperated and went on to live two more years.  The next unachieved thing on Lee’s Bucket List was to see the Seahawks win the Super Bowl.  His love for football actually kept him alive.  After that big victory, he decided he’d had enough of dialysis.

As his family and friends gathered around him in his final days, lavishing him with all the love and attention he so deserved, his parting words were, “If I’d known dying was going to be this much fun, I would have done it sooner.”  The last thing on Lee’s List was to make it into heaven.  

Some lists are about looking back, others about the future, but the best ones involve living the present.