The Bucket List

The small notebook wasn’t much to look at. Leather-bound, black, small enough to slide in my pocket...and old. The leather was dried and cracked, the pages inside yellowed. If it weren’t for the words written inside, I would have tossed in in the trash along with the rest of the junk I was cleaning out of my grandparent’s attic.

It was the bold worlds splashed across the first page that caught my eye as I thumbed through the musty pages. “Bucket List.” Following was a list of adventure, hopes, and goals. Each one had its own page, and each one had a few paragraphs describing in detail the experience as whoever wrote the list fulfilled their goal.

Intrigued, I stuck it in my pocket to read later, and continued helping my brothers and sister clean the attic.

Later that evening we sat down with my parents to discuss the sale of the house.

“We know this house has been in the family for awhile,” began my dad,” but the truth is we just can’t keep it up. With the four of you off doing your own thing, and our own home to maintain, it just makes sense that we sell it.”

We nodded in agreement. It wasn’t easy for any of us to see it go...the house had seen us through our childhood and adolescence...but none of use were willing to move in, so there was little to be done about it.

“We’ve decided that with the sale, we’re going to give each of you $20,000 to do with as you wish,” my mother contributed. “Save it, buy a car, go on vacation. It’s yours to use.”

We gaped at them. None of us had ever seen that much money. My oldest brother had finished college 5 years ago and I, the youngest, was set to graduate in three month, so we were all new to the adventure of adulthood.

Remembering the notebook in my pocket, I pulled it out and handed it to my mother. “Do you recognize this?”

Tears filled her eyes. “This belonged to my Aunt Kathy. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 15. She came up with this bucket list to complete before she died. She only lived a year after the diagnosis, but she managed to fulfill most of the items on the list.”

She handed it back to me and I thumbed through it. There were 8 entries that were filled out, and two at the back with just the wish. “She must have passed before she got to the last two things.”

“You’re welcome to keep it if you want to.”

“I think I will! In fact, I think I’ll try to fulfill these myself! I can complete her list for her!”

“Annie, that’s a wonderful idea!”

“Maybe we can do some of these as a family?”

“That’s a lovely idea.”

The first few entries were simple.

“Take art classes,” followed by a description of some pieces of art she created.

“I’m not really artful, but I’ve always fancied pottery. I hope I don’t break too many pots in the process,” she wrote.

The ceramic bowl she described in the notebook sits in the place of honor on my parents’ mantle. I arranged a month’s worth of painting classes at a local studio for my mother and sister and I….one of the places where you drink wine while you paint. None of use were very good painters, but we laughed a lot.

“Climb a mountain.” She described her hike to the top of the Guadalupe Mountains. How cold it got at night, and how beautiful the sunrise was the next morning. “My papa took me on the climb. Though my strength is waning, I knew I could achieve this feat. We used to hike when I was a child and I only wanted to see the sunrise from the mountaintops and smell the fresh pine one more time.”

This one I did with my dad and my youngest brother. The three of us set out on a Friday, camping at the base of the mountain that night, and coming all day Saturday. By the time we reached the summit, I was exhausted but exhilarated. We camped that night, shivering in our tents, but when I saw the sun coming up over the peaks the next morning, the entire trip was worth it.

“Knit a Scarf: My mama loves my knitting. I hope to leave her with a gorgeous scarf in her favorite colors so she will wear it and think of me.”

I had always been a knitter, so this was easy for me. I followed the color scheme she left in the books, golds and purples. It was lovely.

“Go on a road trip: I longed to see the sites with my closest friends. We spent a week on the road, seeing silly roadside attractions like the world’s largest ball of yarn, and we slept in dingy motels that would horrify mama. It was glorious.”

I enlisted my college roommates for this. The day after graduation, we hit the road, seeing the sites along Route 66 that Aunt Kathy wrote about in the notebook.

“See a Broadway Play.” This was a little trickier to do on the spur of the moment, but when I was invited to New York City for an interview, I lept at the chance. My aunt wrote about seeing The Sound of Music while she was there. I managed to snage last minute tickets to Hamilton for myself and my sister, who accompanied me….a feat that cost a sizable chunk of my $20,000 inheritance.

“Learn to Dance: I signed up for ballroom dancing. I feel myself growing weaker every day, and by the end of my classes I can barely stand. But the instructor is so very good looking. Oh! If only I were well! I would enjoy knowing if he kisses as well as he dances!”

This one proved difficult. I signed up for classes with my boyfriend, but my two left feet had other ideas. At the end of the 6 months of lessons, I was no better at tango-ing as I was before, but I had never felt more fit.

By now, I was halfway into the bucket list, and more than halfway through. My mother told us how, by this time, Aunt Kathy had moved back home, unable to do much outside of the house.

The next two entries were her last to complete. “Write letters to those I love,” with a list of family members and friends. I made my own list and spent weeks writing letters, but I tucked them away, unwilling to hand them out.

Finally, the last fulfilled goal, “Eat a Gourmet Dinner.” My mother remembered that night. Lobster, steak, a flaming chocolate cake, all delivered from the fanciest restaurant in town. The family, including Aunt Kathy, dressed in their finest evening attire and set around the table. Aunt Kathy was unable to eat most of the delicious food, but she wrote in the notebook about the laughter and conversation, how her family made the night the most special she remembered. My entire family gathered for this one, meeting at the restaurant that had catered Aunt Kathy’s meal. We ordered the same meal she had. It was there that I brought up the second to last goal.

“She wanted to go to Italy. Travel through Rome and Venice and Tuscany. I guess it was just too much. I would like all of us to go over the Christmas break. I think it would be amazing to fulfill this wish for her.”

It took some planning over the next several weeks. Passports had to be renewed, tickets purchased, hotels across Italy reserved. But on the first day of Christmas vacation, the 6 of us, along with my oldest brother’s new wife, boarded a plane bound for Rome. For three weeks, we gorged ourselves on pasta, pizza, and wine as we traveled the country, taking in the sights my aunt never got to see.

It was on our last night, sitting around the fireplace at an inn in Tuscany, that I brought up her final goal.

“Mom, did Aunt Kathy tell you and your parents and grandparents how much she loved all of you?”

“Oh yes. She did that on a nearly daily basis. Even when she traveled, she would phone the house to tell us that she loved us each night. There was never a doubt.”

“Strange. I wonder why she left that page blank?”

“Probably because it was never a goal she had to complete, it was one she lived every day.”

“Well, mom….dad….Ben, Adam, Cara. And Laura too. I want y’all to know that I love you all. And I want to make it my goal to tell you guys every day.”

“We love you too, Annie. So much,” My father echoed, followed by sounds of affirmation around me.

“What a gift this year has been,” my mother said. “I’m glad you found Aunt Kathy’s little black book. It really has brought our family together, and we’ve had so many adventures.”

Back at home, I read through the notebook one more time before I tucked it into a drawer, bundled with my own little black book, where I had kept my own records of the past year. May someday, my own children or nieces and nephews would find them, and go on their own adventure. Sitting down at my dest, I pulled out a fresh notebook, and began writing a new bucket list.