What's your Bucket List of to do's before you die?

Harrigran - I agree somewhat with you, but I would add 'as long as I am mentally and physically able to participate in life with my family'.

Grow very, very old.

mewsmuse - I agree that becoming a mother herself might have made your daughter realise what you felt for her.
I would accept any rapprochement from my daughter, even if she could not admit that she has been totally wrong. I know she is now in the grip of serious codeine addiction which has resulted in her having paranoid delusions about her sister and myself. She has now turned on her eldest daughter for 'betraying' her by keeping in touch with us. She is going to lose contact with her own two little grand-daughters but I know from all my research that addicts will put their need for their drug of choice before anything else, even their own family.
I am more upset by being cut off by the three children (all adults) who are still living with her, but I think they just can't cope with her manic ranting or they fear being thrown out - none of them has a job.

Oh... message understood... trouble is, when you get a bit close to the end of play, most of the things you'd like to do are beyond you, for one reason or another!

Sleeping for eight hours without interruption would be pretty good.

feetle its all the things you want to do befoe you kick the bucket!

To find out what the hell a 'bucket list' is...

To own the hope diamond!

mewsmuseI think we understand our own parents better, when we become parents ourselves. Maybe that's the reason for the change of heart - being on the way to parenthood.

I'd go with the flow and hope for the best.
Good luck!

Anyway - Bucket List:
Have a holiday in England and see an archaeological dig.
Finish my play.
Finish my novel.
Be a more successful gardener.
Get my hair right.
Read the Russian classics (in English of course - I'm not a masochist)

Well, that's about it - I thought the list would be longer but can't think of owt else.

What heart-warming news mewsmuse. Take the opportunty and make the best of it, rather than mull over the past. If you fear returning to painful memories, perhaps you can make an agreement at some point that you will both try to keep things positive and focus on this baby and how you can enjoy being mother and grandmother together. You have some happy times ahead, it seems

mewsmuse How very confusing! I think all you can do is take it one day at a time and draw a line under whatever happened. Perhaps she has just come to realise what she has been missing and has ditched her pride to contact you. It must have been hard for her after such a long time so just let it all go, no recriminations and enjoy.

I think there will be some GNs who would wish to have the same situation.

Everyone deserves a second chance, perhaps she has mellowed now her own baby is due soon. Why don't you arrange to meet. What have you got to lose, sometimes there are happy endings. Hope things work out for you.

It's been about 20 years since my eldest daughter (now 43) decided she no longer wanted to know me or any of the rest of her family. There have been one or two meetings in all that time when walking on glass shards is the only way to describe them.

I have just had an e-mail from her saying she is 5 months pregnant by donor. She wrote that after a relationship foundered when she was 39 and she would dearly wanted a child, she grasped this last slither of hope to be a mother and all is going well. She also wrote that she would like me to to be part of her life now, and for me to be an active grandmother to her baby, and that any previous issues should be forgotten. I have no idea what issues there were to create such a long and painful rift, and although her news filled me with elation, it also filled me with fear that I would be going back into a dark place that was so painful.

Has anyone else faced this dilemma. I am depressed to find that this mother's love is not unconditional.

Take one day at a time; stop worrying about everything - it does no good and just wears you out; spend wisely and not with gay abandon as before; take delight in the small things, which very often get forgotten; enjoy the moment; try and finish knitting the matinee jacket I began 8 years ago for Grandson 1 in time for grandchild 8 ; visit friends not seen for years; join something to get me through the winter; make a list of 'to do's' and not lose it; plus lots more ........

And the British museum!

And the Naples museum

And the Athens museum

To visit the Vatican museum again

Butter to want what you have, as opposed to have what you want = happiness

I'm living my bucket list.

I've done plenty of Letters to the Editor in the past, but am in the process of giving up politics - huh, a likely story!

Yes write to your local paper-the Editor of ours told me he enjoyed my rants
I mean well thought out diatribes.

Write to the Malvern Gazette Annobel they seem to publish anything and eveerything on their letter page! Oh maybe that is not what you meant!

I've been fannying around, trying to write for too long - did an OU course in creative writing and did well, but best story got rejected.
So this is on my bucket list:
Get something (anything) published
Apart from that, I just want to live from day to day, taking advantage of the good days and surviving through the bad ones, with a lot of help from GN.

greatnan I echo all that has been said. I can't 'understand' as it hasn't happened to me but I can empathise as something similar has.

I really have written a bucket list and it includes mostly small, easy to do, things I haven't got round to yet like going to the Thursday morning coffee morning! Ticked one off yesterday by going to the Eden Project. Next big one is walking the Inca Trail, I really must do that next year, too busy this.
So many things to do and so little time, I had no idea retirement would be this busy!

Before you 'kick the bucket', kitty! Remember the film with Jack Nicholson?