“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” ~ Joan Didion
This has been rattling around in my being with a sudden and very unexpected family loss just two months ago of my beloved cousin, Don.
What sweeps my house clean is the depth of knowing that everything I wanted to express to Don, I did in our shared sixty-eight years. No filters, saying what we needed to and a depth of love and care that held us both for so very long. I feel adrift now, cut from a safe mooring in a harbor I sailed back to often when I longed for his presence in my life.
Do not withhold, wait, think and believe that there will be a better opportunity in time. Another chance may never be ours adding another layer of very complicated grief on top of what we longed to share, yet may have not.
I told my son I loved him and did I need to come to fetch him on that last night of his life because I didn’t think he sounded well and that I was concerned. I asked him his plan and he told me what he was going to do and I told him I’d call in the morning to check in. That call was never able to come to fruition as I had hoped it would, yet my last words to him are a healing balm for my longing heart.
I wrote a letter to my chaplain supervisor, Linc, when he was given a terminal diagnosis of a rare type of cancer. Expressing to him those pivotal moments in my work with him. One of them being on our weekly walk and talk when he asked what my life might look and feel like without constant striving?
I expressed to my dad on my last visit to see him that he has been one of my greatest teachers. His eyes looked up at me through those long eyelashes of his and he was speechless. Our relationship had experienced some strong undercurrents in the past, yet we both had set our boxing gloves down and began the most worthwhile work of our lifetimes, the repairing of what we did have.
My mother asked for reassurance that she had been a good mom to me as she was beginning her transition from this life into the next. Even though I thought I had expressed over the years just that, it was something she needed to hear one more time. Her eyes softened and her entire being exhaled as she absorbed my words.
My brother, Rick, and I made a pact that whomever shed their earth suit first, that the other would do their best to reassure the one remaining earth side that what was imagined was indeed it and so much more. He did just that on the third day after his passing in a visit that confirmed for me what I hoped for. Only revealing a glimpse, as that is all I could absorb. The experience is still as vibrant as it was twenty-six years ago.
Have I missed opportunities and chances, of course I have, yet not as many now because I understand what I could not before. Life changes in a nano second and if the last encounters, words, were what we had hoped for it makes for far less complicated grief.
As I close, I’ll always remember a parent or two standing outside my elementary school classroom door asking for their child because they had left them in a tiff and could not wait until they came home from school. Witnessing the hugs and lighter footsteps afterwards has always remained with me.
Tell them, Tell THEM, TELL THEM. It does not have to be anything splashy or New York Times worthy. Just a simple expression of perhaps something said that will always be remembered and how their presence is making a difference. They might not have a clue and this simple act transforms lives for both the giver and the receiver. Of this I know for sure. Tell them Tell THEM, TELL THEM!
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