My mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease and for a while she didn't speak much. I think it's because she realized something was terribly wrong but was unable to form the words necessary to express it. So she said nothing. As her condition has worsened she has taken to speaking non-stop - not unlike any of her children, although more often than not her words don't make sense. But every once in a while she manages to nearly form a full sentence or spit out a word that will take me by surprise. For example I recently bought her a new night gown and she looked directly at me and said 'thank you,' even though the previous week she had casually introduced me to one of her nurses as her grandfather. So, as her illness progresses I try to listen to the emotion with which she speaks instead of the actual words.

Click here for more information about Alzheimer's and some of the challenges it presents.

Just recently I was telling one of my siblings about the night I was putting Mom to bed and, in her own way, she began to give me advice about life. Or maybe she was telling me about her own life. Either way, I am confident that what my mother, a village elder, shared with me that night will last me a lifetime.

Without complete sentences and only piecing together words and intonation (and let's be real - what I wanted to hear) she spoke of family; her children and her grandchildren, love and life and the choices she made.

I feel compelled to ask myself why do I feel these lessons are so important, now? My answer: Because time flies by. A dear friend recently reminded me that the older we get the faster it flies.

These lessons give me the opportunity to re-evaluate what is truly important to me and forego an overly analytical process. I have decided that with matters of the heart I am determined to be more forthright, with matters of the soul I will listen, with all the 'things' that mean something to me I will be more compassionate, more readily available emotionally. I am now more willing to act on what my acting coach used to say: Life is most truthful when you allow yourself to be in the moment.

My question for you is this: How do you get your life to the place you need it to be so that you can live in the moment?

My response: Start by clearing the clutter, physically and then emotionally.

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