My bailiff had just booked a $4000+ cruise through Alaska for him and his girlfriend come May. He’s normally pretty frugal with his finances but splurged on a balcony-view room for this impromptu vacation. He said he realized that life really is about the now, and sometimes if you wait, you lose the opportunity. “Did I tell you about the boyfriend my daughter had in high school?” he asked. “No,” I told him.

His daughter was with a boy for 2 years in high school and they went to prom together. They broke up in college because she attended UC Irvine and he went to Pepperdine. In college, he met his future wife, and they married about 2 years ago. They had a great time for a year, but then he suddenly fell sick last December. Blood transfusions and other emergency medical attention couldn’t save him, and he slipped into a coma and died three weeks after having been diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (A.L.L.), an aggressive cancer which hits hard and fast, often in young adults. A.L.L. is what my friend Grace had.* This boy was only 22 when he passed.

My bailiff decided that since he and his girlfriend had always talked about going to Alaska or going on an Alaskan cruise one day, he may as well make the one day now. He can wait for finances to get better, but really, when will they ever be “better” to one’s contentment? (Actually, I’m pretty content with my finances. But I’m not the norm in that.) “I may not have tomorrow, so why wait?” he said. One day you’re here and fine, and the next you (or your loved one) is not. The money will always be re-earned, assuming you’re not throwing all sense of responsibility out the window in buying something you really shouldn’t be buying. But if you can generally afford something, an experience is not replaceable.

I neeeeed a vacation, man! Well, I worked through lunch, so I deserve to go kick some green belt butt in jujitsu for 3 hours tonite. Mr. W offered me a stress-reliever massage if I skip over to his house after class.

*One thing that’s always been of comfort to me is seeing the tons of photos Grace had collected during her short marriage to her husband. There’s them at the Roman Baths, in front of Stonehenge, looking toward the Niagara Falls, in New Orleans. She had a list of places she wanted to travel to, and she got to hit a lot of them, starting from even before her diagnosis. She enjoyed every ounce of her time with her husband and crammed a lifetime of memories into a couple of years. Her life was much like her. Full, vibrant, fierce.