We opened our pool on Sunday (opening was delayed due to a pool-area concrete job that needed to be done first). It's not quite clean yet and is so cold I couldn't even put my legs in. But, last night the girls begged to go swimming and I gave in and dug out the floaties and pool towels.

I sat on the side while they splashed around the shallow end, giggling and shivering, and I thought about my sister-in-law who inspired us to put in the pool.

I think our neighbors probably thought we were crazy when they realized we were putting a 17x34-foot inground swimming pool behind our semi-dumpy, two-bedroom ranch 6 years ago. Since then, that two-bedroom ranch has become a five-bedroom two-story with a great room and three full baths thanks to my oh' so handy & talented hubby, but, I digress....

Some may think that an inground pool is a frivilous luxury in Erie, Pa. where, if we're lucky, we get to use it 14 to 16 weeks out of the year. But, that pool offers much more to me. It's my 10,000 gallon testimony to living in the moment. To living life and enjoying the things we love most (like summer and swimming).

Dan's parents have an inground pool and we always said we'd get one too. We figured it would be later, after we fixed up the house, after we had kids, after we made more more money, after we bought all the other things we needed ...

Then, my sister-in-law got sick.

Grace was the wife of my middle (older) brother and she was just 41 years old and facing stage-3 ovarian cancer. She was the person I was closest to in my family -- the only one I called "just to talk." The diagnosis and the inevitible outcome was life-altering for me. I'll spare you the details -- it was as horrific, tragic and as sad as you can imagine. The entire family rode the cancer roller coaster with Grace for years -- her "counts" are good, her "counts" are bad, one day she'd feel great and be walking around, next day she'd feel like a truck hit her. It seemed you never knew what the next day would bring.

It was then that I decided I would not ever waste another minute of my life doing something I don't want to do, being with people I don't want to be with or putting off until tomorrow things I really want to do today. Because life is too short and you never know when it's going to end.

That's when I got the idea to put in the pool immediately -- to live in the moment -- to throw caution to the wind and blow our entire saving account on a cement hole in the ground. It didn't take much to talk my husband into it - he's always been a happy, go-lucky, live-in-the-moment kind of guy. We didn't have kids then, we had the money to pay for the pool .... why wait for something we both really wanted?

We called the pool company the very next day and took the plunge.

I thought that one day I might regret the pool, but I can honestly say that even in the lousiest of summers I have never, ever regretted that purchase.

We make the most of our short-lived summer pool season -- impromptu pool parties frequently break out at our house. On any hot, humid day, I'll come home to find family members -- brothers, sister, cousins, in-laws, nieces and nephews enjoying the pool. And, the truth is -- I love that. Sure, I get nothing done when I spend all summer entertaining, sitting around the pool and B.S.ing with friends and family, but....I have all winter to work, right?

Gotta live in the moment. Embrace life. You never know when it will end.

Grace never got to see the pool for herself -- by the time construction was completed, she was bed-ridden. She died that summer. We burried her on a hot, sticky August day.

That night, I went out to the pool for a solo swim in the dark and decided it was time to take the other big plunge I'd been putting off -- motherhood.

Kelly Grace was born the following summer; Lauren two years later.

Now, watching my young daughters frolick in the pool, shrieking in delight and shivering under colorful beach towels, I am so thankful I took the plunge.

My only regret is that they'll never know the woman who gently pushed me in.