Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Venice Media Festival Sunday April 13- Wednesday April 13

Sometimes you meet a new friend and you just know you will be friends for a long time. Such is the fate of my meeting with Emilia Penna........who just happened to sit next to me on the first day of the Venice Media Festival.

Emilia had been to Venice several times and we met Wednesday afternoon on San Marco to sightsee. Bridge after bridge we walked and chatted and took pix after pix....What a sunny afternoon, although God did not strike us dead for not paying to get in to the Basilica.

I searched for the customary spoon I bring back for my secretary + a nice Murano glass necklace. As usual, I touched every necklace and put them all back.....Didn't want to spend extra $$$ given BU----turned down a necklace which was less than $20 US. Emilina told me to live for today. You see, she lost her daughter just 3 months before she was to graduate from college. Julliard to be exact. Menangitis, she was gone in two days, along with another sick student. Of 8 kids who contracted it, two were gone. Emilia had always put off that trip..waiting for college graduation, or for that "next". She said this hard lesson had taught her not to put anything off or wait for that next.. (I didn't buy the necklace). But I learned a heartfelt lesson.

Emilia and I have one important hobby in common. Travel. She also has a goal of seeing the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. Before meeting her, I'd never met anyone else with this goal.

What a great person Emme is...........and who would have known a media trip to Venice would remind me of how fragile life is. As I send my first born out in to this big world, what big hopes and dreams I have for him.........but first I live for today as I kiss him good night.