(OK, my computer is screwing up. This post was published before it was supposed to be.  I found it early this morning and have since updated it.  Apologies to my followers.)

Yesterday after being home from the cabin for twenty-four hours, I headed back with my mother and my dear friend.

I have decided that this summer wasn’t going to go by without taking my mom to the cabin. I think I told you that she helped pay for the bunk house but she hasn’t seen it since it was finished. And it’s so cute. At first, she didn’t want to go. The sleeping arrangements worried her.  She has to get up a lot during the night, she snores, etc.

But thanks to my friend she apparently thought it through and decided to go. As you’ve heard me say, she’s pretty frail anymore. We got there about eight p.m. First thing I did was show her the bunk house. She loved it!!!

She slept well that night. After breakfast we headed to a nearby town where we hit the thrift shops. After a few hours we headed back to the cabin, grilled some hot dogs, and left exactly twenty-four hours after we left. Stopped at a Dairy Queen where she enjoyed a strawberry sundae. She enjoyed the trip home. I asked her if she had a good time and she enthusiastically said yes.

I think the point is obvious. Don’t put off spending time with your loved ones. Especially those who are elderly. It’s so trite to say you never know how much longer you’ll have them. Heck, we don’t know how long any of us will be around. But I know one thing, it’s always right to consider that all our relationships are temporary. Don’t waste it by wishing you had done more.

After someone is gone, it makes absolutely no difference what you regret. It makes no difference what you wish you would have done. It is not true that a regret is just a lesson learned. While that may be true, a regret is still a regret.

I realize we all have necessary tasks we have to get done and there are reasons we have to do them when we do. I’m suggesting, however, that most of us spin our wheels on tasks at the expense of people. I try to keep a mental note and make sure I’m connecting with the loved ones in my life often enough.

It’s what you do today that counts. Not what you wished you did differently. Not what you plan to do tomorrow if today would work just as well.