Live for today

JOE SOVA / Hungry Horse News

Last week, Columbia Falls lost a treasured member of our community. Dennis Schoepp, who owned Columbia Mortuary, died at Kalispell Regional Medical Center at the age of 61. He also owned Austin Funeral Home in Whitefish. For years, Dennis showed compassion to families who have lost loved ones, but now he is gone, and far too soon.

During my 30 years living in Riverton, Wyo., my best friend was Brian Witt. He was my roommate for a short time before he met and married a wonderful woman, Nancy. They were celebrating 30 years together when she became ill and died. It was a huge loss to Brian and his family and Nancy's many friends. Brian knows that Nancy is now in God's arms.

Brian and I reconnected last year, and he has remarried and still lives in Riverton. He sent me an e-mail the day after Dennis Schoepp's death and it hit me hard. Here is what was sent to Brian, and that he forwarded to me. You might have read this before, but here it is:

"A friend of mine opened his wife's underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper-wrapped package:

'This,' he said. 'isn't any ordinary package.'

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

'She got this the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on, was saving it for a special occasion.'

Well, I guess this is it.

He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral house; his wife had just died.

He turned to me and said:

'Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion.'

I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less.

I sit on the porch without worrying about anything.

I spend more time with my family, and less at work.

I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through.

I no longer keep anything.

I use crystal glasses every day.

I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if I feel like it.

I don't save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I want to.

The words 'someday…' and 'one day…' are fading away from my dictionary.

If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now…

I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she knew she wouldn't be there the next morning, this nobody can tell.

I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends.

She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels.

I'd like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favorite food.

It's these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

Live for today, for tomorrow is promised to no-one."

Yes, life is short and it is taken for granted much too often. To coin lyrics from a 40-year-old song, "Live for today and don't worry about tomorrow."

Joe Sova is the managing editor of the Hungry Horse News.