I remember spending time reading to my children when they were little. The Giving Tree, Owen, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, Those Terrible Toy Breakers, etc. But more than once I recall that they would ask me to read to them after I returned from a trip or a 16 hour day, and I was too pooped to comply.

One day, without ceremony, they asked me to read again. Maybe I read to them. Maybe I didn’t. But one day, I read to them for the last time. They are teens now. They don’t want me to read to them. Heck, most days they don’t want me to look at them, be seen with them in public, have opinions…You get the point. The window closed.

For years I carried a key chain that spelled out the word “Deeduh” in tribute for what my very young (and slightly dyslexic?) son called me.

Then I remember the day I returned from a business trip, and I was saddened to hear my little boy call out to me in a clear, crisp voice: “Daddy! Daddy!”

One more, just one more. One day all of the things you enjoy, take for granted or perhaps even resent, will be gone.

One more book. I want to read one more story to my kids. I want to give them one more airplane ride. I want to be the horse accommodating my two little riders just one more time.

What do you wish to do one more time? What do you wish to be mindful of experiencing just once more? For young lovers, maybe it’s one more kiss. For the aged facing eternity, perhaps one more breath. To the person just given the news that “It’s cancer. And it’s terminal”, maybe it’s the desire to see one more Spring. Or hold a grandchild one more time.

What are you going to miss when it’s gone? What are you going to yearn to experience one more time once the window has closed and the opportunity has past?

That is the thing you should savor today, mindful that it won’t be here for a lifetime of tomorrows.