I'm a graduate student at UCLA. Last weekend my family and I celebrated my Great Aunt Loretta's 85th birthday. Even though we don't see that much of each other I've always felt a certain closeness to her, maybe because we're both artists or because neither one of us is afraid to try new things. When she was 60 years old she went skydiving. In her seventies she traveled to Africa and rode an elephant.
At her party she told me that I reminded her of herself when she was younger. She said, "We're kindred spirits in a way, I've always felt that." Then something very amazing happened. After I told her that my motto has always been to live each day as if it were my last, she told me her motto:
"Treat everyone you meet each day as though it were their last day on earth."
