What a genuinely pure-hearted, truthful advices for all of us !
Thank you for putting these words on our page, Rover.
We all try to do what she said as we get older every day, but
the question is, "How successful are we?"

"I would have cried and laughed less while watching television
and more while watching life." strikes close to my heart more
because so many years ago I had lost interest in reading fictions including classics,
movies, etc., instead decided to do just that "watch life" as it unfolds in front me
as I acitively participates in it. The reason I had to avoid all those fictions was that
life's actual drama is more real and exciting and I'm running out of time as I get older.
As I have lived the life in the real time basis, I'm more fascinated, more child-like,
more awed, more at a loss and feel more ignorant and more blind to what the reality is
and what God has in mind, repeating the old cliche, "God works mysteriously."
Those young kids dying of cancer and leukemia are so often so mature in their thinking
and so enlightened that they often make grown ups cry.
I was reading case histories of enlightenments of modern men and women who experienced
what Buddha experienced.
One of them was 20 year old young woman who was dying of tuberculosis.
She was smiling like Buddha on her death bed.
I've watched many patients over the years who had realized what this woman is saying,
and were showing their changed behavior and were comforting their children and survivors
on their deathbeds.
What  beautiful sights they were !
They all show that dying can be a beautiful thing to someone who has tasted what it's all about
as this lady did and left these words.

 Dr. Lee;

I just returned home from a funeral of one of my golf buddies.
It was at an Episcopal Church in my town. It was my first experience in that church
and was very uniquely different than other funerals I've seen in the Christian churches.
There was no tales of gloomy and sad things about the deceased and the death.
It was a ceremony of "the celebration of life" rather than about "the sadness of death".
I was much impressed and felt good as his coffin was lowered into the depth of the ground. 
In a way, the death is to be celebrated (though it may sound very odd) as it is a part of life.

I agree totally with you or Erma Bombeck.
The article shows the inner minds of people who faced untimely death.
(... Is there truly such thing as an untimely death?? That's another philosophical subject.)

Except the cases you mentioned in your comment, most of us are created to "regret"
(instead of "having fulfilled") our past. I think god (generic) created us to be that way.
If one has fulfilled his fate and has no regret, he has to be a god (or similar being) himself.

Like Erma, one can not do everything that one wants to do in his life.
There always have to be some regrets.
Otherwise, it isn't a life of a human being.

Thank you for your always honest comment, webmaster.
As we attend the funerals more often than the weddings,
we seem to be in an accelerated course or class of life in general.
I agree with what you said wholeheartedly.

All I can say to you is that it is very much comforting to me to be able to converse with you
frankly even on a complex subject like this where so much of how all of us have lived all these years
is bound to manifest in the dicussion.
For the first time I decided to learn more about Ted Kennedy as they began televising his
entire memorial service on CNN, and must tell you how little I knew him, which is not surprsing
since I've not been a student of politics. Yet I was glad that I seemed to have found out where
his unusual drive was coming. I didn't know he loved to sing and paint, either.