It’s been a busy few weeks, and I’m just about to the point of not sure how I got here and not sure how I’m going to get home.

I’ve been working on 2010 budgets for two of the newspapers in our group, and with the economy like it is it’s been more taxing than usual.

And thinking I’ll relax when I get home is absurd. This week homework included a book report with a “creative project.” Last week it was tests. Next week, more tests.

So when I realized I had to write a column, my mind was racing. But it wasn’t focused on the column. It was trying to remember all the tasks I’ve yet to complete.

And then, my friend Barbara Eckert from St. Tammany News sent me an e-mail. It was a pass-along, of course, and of course I didn’t pass it along.

But its message was meant for me, and I’m going to share it in case any of you out there are feeling the same whirlwinds right now.

According to the e-mail, this poem was written by a girl in New York with terminal cancer who will never go to the prom, graduate from high school, get married or have a family of her own.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask “How are you?”

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child, “We’ll do it tomorrow?”

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

‘Cause you never had time

To call and say, “Hi”?

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift….

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower.

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

Sandy Cunningham is publisher of L’Observateur. She can be reached at sandy.cunningham@ wickcommunications.com