Dying To Do

Lily was a beautiful young girl. She was in love with Anmol. He was coming to see her next day. She said to her mother, “Mama, I’m dying to see Anmol. How will this day pass?” Mama smiled and said, “All the better for you to have time to prepare for him to come! Stop dreaming!”

They married and had a beautiful daughter. Lily would always say to her, “Kuki, I’m dying to see you grow up.” She thought of all the fun she would have painting the city red with her fun-loving daughter. Years passed and Kuki grew up and was engaged to be married. Lily said, “Oh Kuki! I’m just dying to see you as a bride.” Kuki laughed and said, “Oh mom! You don’t have to die to see me as a bride; you’ll see me while you’re still alive!”
Well, the wedding day came and went too. Then Kuki was to become a mother and Lily in her classic style said, “Oh God! I’m just dying to become a grandma. Kuki I’m sure you’ll have a handsome son.”
Later, Kuki moved to London and Lily was always dying to visit her there. Over the years Lily had put on weight and would often say to her husband, Anmol, I’m dying to join a gym and lose some weight.” He would look over his spectacles and say, “What stops you, go ahead!” But the day never came.
At the age of sixty, Lily said to Anmol, “Anmol, I’m dying to do some social service. Anmol raised his eyebrows and said, “Why don’t you?” Lily lounged lazily in her rocking chair and said, “Who would tend to the garden? And what about you? Who’ll cook for you? You know I like to have the house spic and span, who’ll look after all that?”
Anmol said, “Don’t let these things hold you back. If you want to do it, just do it! We’ll get a maid to do the housework, why do you worry?”
Last month, Lily turned seventy four, she has still not visited Kuki, nor started social service. She now suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis and High Blood Pressure. She can barely walk two steps without help. But she’s still dying to do social service, lose weight and also visit Kuki in London. This is what Lily says, “Now, I realise that I’m dying and I wish I had done something. I wish I had not just said… I’m dying to do this and that. I wish I had done what I wanted to while I could, for now I can not.”
There are two kinds of people – Those of words and those of deeds. A person of words and not of deeds is a garden full of weeds!
He slept beneath the moon,
He basked beneath the sun,
He lived a life of ‘going to do’,
And died with nothing done!
~ Author unknown