With the passage time, we tell ourselves, troubling times or events become easier to bear, tumultuous or tragic, heartbreaking or gut wrenching. It’s a part f the human condition, as they say….to remember and pine and mourn for others who have passed before us, too soon, sorely missed.
We all have or will suffer losses that make you feel like someone pulled your nose through your navel, so discombobulated that for a time, time both stands still and moves at sonic speed. These are the times that test us most, that make us prove we can survive anything.
Three years ago tonight, at this very moment, I spoke to my brother for the last time. He was heading home from a long stint in the hospital, to spend a night with his wife and dogs, before beginning to make his way back into his old life, slowly but methodically it was hoped. It wasn’t a long conversation. I knew he had things to do. But I was just so happy, so happy for him, that he could hug his family and hold his dogs, that he could sit with his wife Carrie and have long conversations about their hopes and dreams.
I didn’t know that, when I hung up that…..that was it. Never to hear his voice again. Never to text each other and laugh and talk hockey or football or movies or music. He would linger for 5 days, giving us all the time to say our goodbyes. I know that these emotions I feel are multiplied by his closest loved ones. Yet there it is…. the pain has not abated. I miss him as much if not more than before all this came to be.
Talk to those you care about and care for as as often as you can. They are the only recordings that will ever matter.
Bill's Musings 