Dear readers. I really want to say a big thank you to all the heartfelt messages and comments you have left in my previous blog posts. It really means alot! I really want to share something that inspired me as a parent recently. If you are not a parent yet, I am sure it will touch you as a son or a daughter as well.

Recently, I happened to be watching a DVD entitled ‘Oprah’s 20th Anniversary Collection’ and one particular couple Oprah interviewed really taught me the meaning of true love.

Oprah interviewed Erin Kramp and her husband Doug (in their mid 30s). So, what was so special about their lives?

Erin and Doug Kramp

They were a vivacious, charismatic, adventurous couple. She was a fast-thinking venture capitalist who advised Doug on business deals. Two years after their only daughter, Peyton, was born, Erin discovered a lump in her breast — a malignant cancer diagnosed as fatal. The doctors told her that she had only a few years to live.

Instead of feeling sorry for her self and blaming anyone, Erin accepted that she was going to die. What concerned her the most was how her 2-year old daughter will be brought up when she was gone. Erin decided that not even death will prevent her for being there with Peyton as she grew up into her woman. She was committed to find a way so that even in her passing, Peyton would not be deprived of having her motherly love, advise and companionship.

With the little time that she had left, Erin took a video recorder and taped her self giving words of love, encouragement and advice. She created hundreds of hours worth of video footage and archived them according to volumes of different topics, creating messages that her daughter could count on receiving years into the future. They were full of a lifetime of advice and messages tailored to when Peyton was ready to hear them as she grew older. The topics ranged from ‘How to do makeup’, ‘How to choose the right boyfriend/husband’, ‘ fashion tips’, ‘picking a career’.

Erin even anticipated that her daughter may find it difficult to accept a step mother should her husband choose to re-marry. In a tape to be played when the question arose, she said, “I want you to know that I would very much bless Daddy remarrying if he is given that opportunity. ‘ I feel fine about it, because I’ll always be your real Mom.”

Finally, Erin went out and bought 20-years of Christmas presents, Birthdays presents and happy birthday wishes on video. After her death, her husband would give his daughter the presents as she reached her birthdays saying that it was from her mother.

Erin Kramp

I don’t know about you, but I think that I have learned a powerful lesson on appreciating the life and time we have on earth with the people who we really care about.

When parents tell me that they have no time to teach their children, I share this story with them. When we are truly committed to a goal nothing can stop us…not even death.

Erin died at 4 a.m. on Oct. 31, 1998, 4 years after her diagnosis. Her daughter Peyton was six at the time.