Perhaps today isn’t the day to formally start my history, but it is a day that begins a great change in my life, and I must get started. My life has been so varied and interesting that it will take many pages. Much of it has been challenging and exciting and will be joy to tell, and I’ll try to use wisdom in the sad times.
It has been a sad day today with many emotions rolling around within me. For today is the first day in 26 years that I have not been employed by Brigham Young University except for a few months twice. These were 26 wonderful years in which I reached goals that I would never have thought possible when I was a young girl growing up at Redmesa, Colorado or attending high school in Durango. Now at 66, I must change the way of life that has been filled with activities, working with young people and daily challenges. I must do what I am doing now…sit at the typewriter and put down all the ideas that I have begun over the years and new ones that daily pop into my head. I shall spend as much time as possible with my family—trying to be sure I never become a burden to any of them. I shall travel and go on with my many hobbies. Still, it is going to mean a great change and changes are frightening, especially when one sees that life is approaching the end, although there is a possibility with my excellent health that there will be many good years yet.
My great hope is that I can grow old with a sense of humor, a zest for life, and that I might be an interesting person. There are so many traps that many old people fall into—talking too much (I do at times), talking about things in too much detail (I do at times), boring people with my illnesses–(I don’t do this often because of my good health), and not smiling enough (which I don’t do at times).
I must be more loving and kind and thoughtful. Today I was at a low ebb when my doorbell rang. There stood a small, round-faced man holding a ceramic swan with a plant in it. He smiled and said, “I have a flower for you.” I thanked him and took the small plant into the kitchen and read the card. It was from one of the choice young fellows that I had worked with in the first The Sunshine Express singing group and then The Sounds of Freedom. The card thanked me for what our association had meant to him, (I had written to all the members of the Sound in farewell) and also thanked me for being such a good friend. I wept all over the leaves of the tender plant. But, my day was brightened. I wonder if he could know what this gesture meant on just such a day. Why don’t we all do more of this because we never know when just a kind word, or something just a little extra could mean so much?