Bonus round

One of our most vibrant members passed away over the weekend at the way-too-young age of 41. I met him once or twice, but wish I would have known him better: from everything I've read, he seems like an incredible guy. My colleague, Larry, wrote an incredibly poignant blog post about this well-respected man, who seemed to have a refreshing viewpoint on life.

My favorite part of his blog post was about the eulogy his wife gave during yesterday's funeral. She said, basically, that her husband always had a lot of ideas, one of which was this concept of a "bonus day." In this concept, you take a routine, "normal" day and make something special out of it that can live in your memory.

As my friend Larry said, "Whether Alan was scrapping dinner plans to make something adventurous in the kitchen, taking his kids sledding when they should be sleeping, or some other zany activity — Alan’s life was filled with bonus days. If you take nothing else from his life, we should all try to create as many bonus days in our own life as possible." Man, isn't that the truth?!?

So I've been thinking about the idea of a "bonus day" ever since I read Larry's post. I have a slightly different take on it, in that I decided a "bonus day" means to me that every day I get is a day that I am 1) not owed and 2) can't "do over."

To be honest, I've lived 30 wonderful, healthy, fun, successful years (and I hope to live, hmmm...60 more!). But I realize that a zillion different things could have hypothetically happened to me that would have cut my life short, and everything I get on top of what I have should be considered a bonus. Let me tell you: that shift in perspective really makes a difference to me.

With this buried in the back of my mind, I went to girls' night after work with four great friends. We talked about everything: babies, weddings, showers, Europe, the Harvard professor, health care reform...you name it. As I was walking back to my car after we dispersed into five different directions, I realized this was my "bonus" for today: an evening surrounded by good friends, way too much laughter, and a dinner bill that didn't even come close to the value that can be put on memories like this.