Читать книгу FUDDLE CUP - Dolores McKay - Страница 3

Dear Rosalind, Henry, and Paulina,

Forgive me if I did not get your names quite right or left someone out. You are each important to me all the same.

It is impossible to guess when you will get around to reading this. I imagine it will happen eventually. After all, everything contained in these pages was composed for you. Considering we may never meet, my writing this for you must seem odd. Yet, it is in that precise oddity — as with most truths — that demonstrates the whole point.

I am on borrowed time. Actually, we all are, from the minute we were born. Every day you breathe is a gift you cannot deserve but miraculously receive any way. You are never owed any promise of tomorrow or the next day. There are also no guarantees of what else will be given to you today, except your breath. Some days, not even that comes easy.

If medical odds were impeccable, I should have stopped breathing already. I should be incapacitated. I should be mentally hampered by painkillers. I should have little to no chance of meeting you. Alternatively, I could at any time, be hit by the same proverbial bus those predicted to live to one hundred might also encounter. Everyone is on borrowed time; it is just more obvious with some of us.

When acutely aware you live on borrowed time, you prioritize doing the most crucial things first. If you prioritize well, the most crucial things have little to do with you and have everything to do with others. Personally, I fathom no other way to pay back borrowed time than to use whatever time I have, for those to whom it would mean the most.

You are by far, my greatest hope for the future. I hope to meet each of you, face to face. I hope to see you grow and watch as you impact the world in your distinctive ways. I imagine you — lingering around my kitchen table, filling up on my adoration and homemade hot cocoa — rich with marshmallows, anecdotes, and shrewd advice. Picturing you is all I need to keep my priorities straight — regardless of time.

Like everyone else, I have no idea how much time I can borrow. If it is less than I would like, what I will have to leave you? A substantial inheritance? I hope so. It would be highly unlikely your inheritance would be mainly money, though. Life has had its seasons of monetary success, but life is not about that. As your Great Great Grandmother Velda used to say, “I am rich in everything but money.” While I strive today to acquire the myriad of life wealth Velda had, my collection of unusual experiences thus far, have paid generous dividends to what I now understand.

I may never meet you. You will be born someday, and I may never get to fill cups of hot cocoa for you as I dream. I will, however, endeavor every day I have breath to leave you the most valuable assets I have: what I know. If I fail to gather you around my kitchen table, I will not neglect to fill the only cup I can for you — this book — your Fuddle Cup.

This book is a poor substitute for a grandmother, but it is the greatest inheritance I have to offer. It is what I have discovered, so far, about life. I hope that sharing it will someday better all of yours. I love you all.

Your grandmother… someday,

Dolores McKay

P.S. If you ever wonder how vital it was that you were born, how much someone can love the mere thought of you, or if you ever question what you are worth — read this again.