Helen stared at the piece of paper in her hand. Five down, one to go. This had been a wild and wonderful two weeks, and she was determined to make this last bit the best time of her life. When she had gotten the news from her doctor that the cancer had spread beyond the point where it was treatable, she had sat down and written this list. Okay, maybe it wasn’t full of the most exciting of things, and Hollywood certainly wasn’t going to come knocking to make a movie about the suburban housewife from Portland who discovers she has breast cancer and goes on an exciting motorcycle trip around the globe, but it was still things that she had always dreamed of doing.
At first, the news that she would most likely not live to see her fiftieth birthday had left her feeling numb and unreal, like she was living in a fog. Harry had tried his best to comfort her, but he had never really been the sort to show an overt amount of affection. But he did his best, and she had to love him for that. It had been Harry who suggested doing the bucket list, after she had lamented that she was never going to get to see the Space Needle ever again. Encouraged by his advice, she had sat down and written a list of five things she had always dreamed of doing.
First up on her agenda had been a fancy dinner at Sky City, the revolving restaurant at the top of Seattle’s famous Space Needle. The second(and one that had to be added so she could do the first) was a beautiful floor length green dress that made her look twenty years younger. At least that’s what Harry said. The view from the restaurant had been spectacular, the food even more so. Harry had been a little shocked at the price, but Helen not so gently reminded him that she didn’t have much time left to enjoy the finer things.
Item three had been a day trip to Disneyland, a place she hadn’t been to since she was younger. She felt transported back to her childhood as she met Mickey and Minnie, a wide grin on her face as she went on every ride twice. Some three times. Afterwards, she and Harry had driven over to Hollywood and gazed in admiration at the Walk of Fame. Helen made a game of seeing how many stars she could count. She made it up to 400 before it got too dark to see. Then, after Harry took her back to the hotel, a quite pleasant activity occurred that wasn’t on the list, but nonetheless made Helen quite happy.
Item four had been a trip across the border to visit her sister Amy and her husband Mark in Vancouver. Amy and Helen had been very close growing up, so when Amy married and moved to Canada, it had been hard on both of them. Email, phone calls and Skype couldn’t take the place of real human contact. But Helen’s job as a teacher meant that she couldn’t get away as often as she had liked. When the cancer had been diagnosed, Amy had been the second person to find out after Harry. The trip had been wonderful. Amy’s children were now eight and ten, and Helen had a blast just spending time with them in their sprawling house. That trip had lasted nearly five days.
But now, there was one item left on the list. It was going to be a difficult one, but Helen knew that if she didn’t do it, if she didn’t reach out to this person and try to make things right, she would never be able to rest easy in Heaven. She took a deep breath to prepare herself, then picked up the phone and dialed a number that she still had memorized after all these years.
The phone rang… and rang… and rang. After ten rings, the person on the other end picked up. “Hello?”
Helen took a breath, then spoke. “Hello, mother.”