To Live

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, 

wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed,

and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.  
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels 

from taking kids to scout camp.  
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt

 from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails
from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks

 and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

- Marjorie Pay Hinckley -