Living Each Day to the Fullest

In the last few days, I have lost two women friends, both of whom I will miss very much, even though I have known both people well for less than one year.  What they both had in common was that they lived life to the fullest, making each day count in their own way.  

My first friend was 92 years old.  She was not somebody whose name you would recognize, nor will there be hundreds of people at her memorial service.  Her concerns and interests were mostly family, good friends and her faith.  She also loved the Broncos.  

She inspired me because she carried on with a strength and spirit and spunk that belied her physical ailments and age.   She lived in an assisted living community and each evening, she would choose the outfit she planned to wear the next day.  She dressed in vivid colors, with pins and scarves to accent whatever she wore.  She also had a matching handbag for each outfit.  Her hair had grown thin, but she even had a sense of humor about that, calling her wig "my hat", and always wearing it until bedtime.

Shortly after she moved to the assisted living community, she got on the elevator one morning, resplendent as usual, and another resident looked at her and said "Humph, another outfit." To which my friend replied "why thank you very much."  The resident looked at her coldly and said "that was not a compliment, it was an observation!"  

My friend recounted this story with great good humor.  She was a lady who accepted what life gave her; put on her "hat" each day and marched out to greet the world, dressed to the hilt.  But even more importantly, she always listened to what others had to say and remembered to ask how they were doing.  Wherever she went, people were glad to see her because she always had a cheerful smile and a kind word.

My other friend was only fifty-five years old.  Many of you knew her or know of her, Leslie Fishbein, the energetic, bubbly intelligent lady who, along with her husband, owned Kacey Fine Furniture company in Denver.  She was a highly accomplished, successful businesswoman.  

She had recently joined a book group I have belonged to since 1967.  She was a breath of fresh air in our group, a lively contributor who clearly cared about her reading and loved to discuss books with us.  One night, after a meeting at our home, all the guests but Leslie had gone home. She spent an hour with me and my significant other, talking about books, about family and sketching my livingroom so I could visit her store and know what kind of furniture to look for. 

These two ladies, one who had lived a private life and the other, a very public life, both were inspirational.  They made every day count, by approaching life with a positive upbeat attitude and by taking the time to care about other people.