The Bucket

There's been a lot of rain in Kansas City over the last few days, but I suppose it is spring after all and rain comes with the season. I've always liked rainy days, especially rainy days when I can stay in my house and read or write or nap with my hound dogs. I don't care for rainy days when I have to drive back and forth in rush-hour traffic, and I don't care for rainy days when my basement leaks, which, by the way, is now every time it rains. My son Matt keeps telling me that if I don't get the crack that is causing the leak fixed, my house is going to crumble down around me. Maybe he's correct in his assessment, but right now, there's just not enough moolah in the bucket to pay for massive basement repairs. Hmmm ... the bucket ... I may need one to scoop up the water in my basement after all this rain.

Several years ago on a summer trip to Colorado with my kiddos, I decided that I needed to start a bucket list ... you know, the list of things one whats to do or see or accomplish before kicking the bucket, pushing up daisies, popping your clogs, meeting your Maker, buying the farm, biting the big one ... OK, enough ... I'm sure you get my drift. I kind of went about my bucket list making sort of, well, sort of backwards. I did something I'd always wanted to do and then I started my list so that I could have at least one thing crossed off should I ... yeah, you know. On that particular trip to my beloved Colorado mountains, I packed my three teenaged kids into the car and we drove across Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved through road in the United States. It was at the top when we stopped to take some photos way above the tree line that I decided I had need to create a bucket list, that there were things I wanted to do before I departed from this earthly life.

In the 10 or so years since that unbelievable drive (you should all have that on your own bucket lists, by the way), my bucket list has gone through several different iterations ... I've added some things, I've deleted some and I've even completed some and crossed them off the list. Last night as I was thinking about the rain and my leaky basement and buckets, I couldn't help but find myself pondering my list. The last time I looked at my list was a short while after my little pup J.R. died. I sat by the creek where J.R. and I so often stopped on our walks, leather journal in hand, and made some changes to my bucket list once again.

I don't sleep well right now, so in the wee hours of the night last night, I took out my journal and looked at my bucket list. I realized that I may never cross off all the things on that list ... and it's OK if I don't. I may never learn to fly fish, but I've known the feeling of pulling a large trout from a cold stream in the Colorado mountains. I may never go sailing, but I've felt the stretch of my muscles as I paddled a canoe down a lazy Tennessee river. I may never own a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, but I've experienced the wind on my face as I wrapped my arms around a friend and we sped down the highway on his bike. I may never go to a tropical island, but I've spent quite a bit of time on some Florida beaches. I may never write a best-selling book, but I've penned countless words that have been read by many. I may never fall in love again, but I've been loved and I've loved deeply. And this list, friends, could go on and on.

The more I think about it, the more I think my bucket list doesn't really matter so much. I don't think the things I haven't done matter nearly as much as the things I've been blessed to be able to do already. I think what matters most is the bucket of my life instead of my bucket list, and my bucket has been well-filled ... well-filled indeed.