I am a list maker. I don't have any strong affection for lists. At times, I don't want to look at my lists because there is so much listed there to do, some of the tasks unpleasant (like reset fresh mouse traps; remember them?) and only one me. But mostly, I just find lists helpful. I like that I can write everything down—what I have pack, what I have to pick up at the grocery, what I have to do around the house, what work I have to get done in my office—and then clear my mind, at least of that information, because now the lists are going to do the work for me, of remembering, prioritizing, and keeping order in my busy days.

I would not have imagined getting too busy to make the lists, but that is what has happened lately. Life has been going by in a blur of professional deadlines. The lists don't matter because I am consumed with what has to be done now, this morning, today, with no free mental space to think beyond at all. I've got no time to do things on a list, and no time to bother writing a list I won't have time to do.

But now, after spending a week a few hundred miles away from home by the hospital bedside of an elderly family member, I find myself very much wanting to write another list. I want to write a to do list for this family member. One that would give order and predictability back to her existence. One that would embrace ability, and possibilities. There is little order, less predictability, and very few possibilities in the day of a critically-ill person.

Until last week, I took lists and the time to make them and follow through with what they detailed for granted. I won't again, at least for a time. Lucky me, to be home with the time and ability to make a list, to be able to wake up to a day of possibilities, a day I can make orderly, predictable, and successful via my list.