This has been a challenging week and one that has made me pause to consider my goals, life and what I set as priorities. It’s events that make you look at the world around you and realize what really is important and what just doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things; what is worth getting upset over and what just isn’t.
Tuesday a friend of ours lost her battle with cancer. Susan was only 57. She was full of life and light, always smiling and everything for her was an adventure. She was wife to a long time friend and mentor; she was a sister. She was beautiful, loved and never ran out of hugs. Her Celebration of Life was Sunday and it was surreal. In fact, I don’t think the reality had hit me quite yet. I hugged her partner tightly as she cried. I watched the videos of her play out on the screen. The tears weren’t coming – it wasn’t real. I didn’t want to believe she was gone. Surely she would be walking out into the living area any moment.
But she didn’t.
Monday morning, my good friend called me. She was in tears when I answered. Their dear friend and a client of ours, Devon, died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. He was 27. It didn’t seem real. I thought I heard her wrong when she said it…. but my ears were not mistaken. I was in shock – how could this be?
“Why do the good people have to go?” she asked.
I wish I knew because I was asking the same question. I didn’t have an answer.
That’s when it all hit me like a ton of bricks. All the tears and sadness I had been holding, the reality finally set in. These two beautiful people were gone. It hit me that my friend Susan was gone; that my friend no longer had her partner. It hit me that a man with a future so bright was gone in the blink of an eye and left behind were those who loved him dearly. That 2 good, wonderful people had gone onto heaven – in our opinion – much too soon.
I sat and listened on the phone. I cried with her. We tried to make sense of it and there’s no way to make sense of it. It’s part of life. It’s God’s plan. It’s a lot to handle in 1 week.
Today we talked some more and one conclusion we did come to was that whatever the reason, they are up in heaven right now planning some crazy adventures, making things happen. They are smiling down on us. They are angels God needed on His team.
They are exactly the kind of people that would say ‘why are you sitting there crying? get up and go do something. I’m fine now. I really am. And I am still with you.”
If there’s one thing they showed us it is that you have to LIVE, LAUGH and LOVE every moment.
So today we honor them. Today we will find something to do that moves our lives forward. Today we will have our cry and we will also live. We will get angry because we don’t understand. Today we will allow ourselves to fall apart and then pick ourselves back up. Today we will do our best to carry on. We will find peace in knowing that we will be together with them again one day. Today we will hug our loved ones tighter and say a few extra “I Love You’s”
For today is what we have. Now is what we have.
