On Loss

This weekend I went to a gathering to honor the life of the husband of a coworker.  Donna is beautiful, from the inside out, and it was great to see pictures of her and her husband over the years at their home.  They built their house, and have the pictures to prove it.  Its unique architecture and location on the outskirts of town were balanced with a distinct grounding energy and decor on the inside, and I inwardly giggled as she gave me the tour of "where it all began" (a single small room in the center of the ground floor which years ago housed their family bed).

Our workplace seems to have been hit with tragedies this year--we lost a coworker early in the year who was in her 40s, and another coworker's husband also passed suddenly a couple of months ago.  It was interesting, albeit heartbreaking, to see the difference between my two coworkers' grief on Sunday.  "So now you know where I am.  Now you know the way," I overheard Donna say with a comforting smile to her fellow widow who was struggling to keep the tears from falling.  How odd that Donna was the one doing the comforting on the day of her own husband's memorial service, but I suppose fitting given her nurturing nature and the peace that she and her husband had made with his long illness.

As I was leaving her home, Donna reflected on Craig's death, which comes as her youngest child of four is preparing to move out of the house they constructed together.  "It's a shame that now at this point in our lives our time was cut short," she said.  She was wistful, deeply saddened, but accepting of the situation in a way.  Just over a week ago I watched my brother and his new wife vow to honor each other in sickness and in health.  My aunt, Neil's godmother, was also in attendance, but must have been missing her own partner who was thankfully successfully weathering a long 3-weeks that included a significant amount of time intubated in the ICU.  My cousin's husband was also absent from the wedding as his family rallied to support his mother at the end of her battle with cancer.

When thinking of all the sickness and eventual death that affects us all, I can't help but think that in vowing to stick by your partner till the bitter end, we have no idea what we're getting into.  I had no idea what it would be like to have two children with a man who is in his sixth year of training (one and maybe two more to go!), but I'm learning that it's hard.  Hopefully he will choose a path and a job that allows for flexibility enough to enjoy this healthy time in our lives.  Life is too short to spend working or being too busy to really be present with the ones you love.

So hug everyone a bit tighter tonight, and tell them you love them.  Its not always easy to appreciate what we have today, but it certainly makes life sweeter in the end.