How long?

The end is drawing near. How long? A year? Or three or four? Or less or more?

Then, if I could, I would wander up some lane, onto a sunlit terrace, or float out over the patchwork of green fields in the valley, and dissolve, disappear into the ether.

How do I wish to be remembered?

What I have said, what I have done, what I have meant to others.

How they have seen me.

How do I wish to be remembered?

My life. A life attached like Velcro to a body now too aware of its parts, just barely held together.

Inevitability.

Nice word.

And those I remember, who have already passed into the ether? Memories that have filled me with joy but will now disappear together with me.

And with me all memory of who I was and of those who loved me, for whom I was more than just a body fleetingly encountered.

It all comes down to what are we here for.  Have I done my best to help others? To build a house of love in a world of pain? Have I given others joy, if only for a moment? Have I succeeded in transmitting to others, or perhaps just to one other, my delight in the endless wonders of the world?  Rose petals scattered on the stone steps leading up to the church, leftover from a wedding. Pussy willows heralding spring, memories of my New England youth. Owls or doves greeting each other in the woods.  The unbelievable beauty of the song of nightingales, unseen, calling to each other.

I shall undoubtedly be remembered for my strawberry shortcake. Whenever strawberries and whipped cream and flaky biscuits appear on the table, someone will go back in time to the first time they ate them, this very American dessert. Like apple pie, which my granddaughter has now learned to make even better.

Like all living creatures our permanence on earth has its limits. And I shall try and make the most of the time allotted me.

Grateful for what has been, hoping to live on in the hearts and minds of others.