Don’t wait. If you wait to do the things you want to do, they may never happen.

 As I got closer to retirement, I learned an important lesson from two people. ~ Kathy

First Lesson...

Mary, a teacher friend of mine, retired five years before I did. For the last few years before her retirement, Mary often talked about the trips she and her husband planned to take as soon as they retired. They had everything planned out.

Mary and her husband were both in great health for their age. They retired on time but hardly ever left their house.

Then, without warning, Mary’s husband had a heart attack. While he wasn’t bedridden, he was not able to travel anymore. Mary could still travel, but she couldn’t leave him.

I ran into her one day at JCPenney in the mall, and she gave me this advice: “Don’t wait. If you wait to do the things you want to do, they may never happen.”

Second Lesson...

This one is personal. My sister retired after 33 years of teaching. She loved teaching, especially preschool, and taught in a community that was 30 minutes away from where she lived with her husband.

The summer before her third year of teaching preschool, she learned that one of her new students was a three-year-old boy who was deaf. She spent the entire summer learning sign language just to communicate with him.

That year, in April, I drove 450 miles to spend time with her during her school break. She was in perfect health at the time.

By the end of the month, she was having surgery to remove a fast-growing brain cancer. She died in November that year, at the age of 61.

I had always wanted to travel abroad. I had renewed my passport four times since I was 28 and never used it. But after learning those two lessons, I took action. My daughter and I traveled to the UK, then to Italy, France, Switzerland, Ottawa, Montreal, and back to England.

We are planning to visit Vancouver, British Columbia, next spring.

It took my colleague’s advice and the death of my sister to finally push me to travel. So, when people say, “Don’t wait, because it may be too late,” I now truly understand. Don’t wait, because it may be too late.

I wrote this five years ago. ~ Kathy