Watching Connie Ferguson at her husband’s funeral broke my heart. I can’t imagine saying goodbye to my husband of only 4 months, imagine the pain she feels of losing her best friend and life partner of 20 years.
Death is such a painful experience and before I lost my mom, I couldn’t really relate to anyone who lost another person. I couldn’t understand that grief and pain. I couldn’t fathom the emptiness and now I see and feel it all around me, almost on a daily basis.
It’s painful to read, report or hear of someone dying, it’s heart-shattering. When someone you love dies, a part of you dies with them. There is constant emptiness, a dark and hollow feeling. You can never shake it and you live with it all your life.
It rocks you to your core and breaks every resolve you’ve ever had. Then you have to rebuild. You need to start again.
Something that is beautiful though is love, love makes the memories that you carry worth all the pain that you feel. Memories and the feelings associated with that person, makes it bearable.
What this death has reminded me of, is that we run out of time.
We do not live forever.
The time that we have on this earth is more than precious, it is sacred.
The people we have in our lives, the ones we love and cherish and adore, are the ones that deserve all that we have to offer.
We cannot afford to be selfish and arrogant. We can’t live in a way where anger and hatred dominate our lives.
Say ‘I love you’ as often as you can and mean it.
Enjoy every minute you can breathe.
Laugh as much as possible and love even more.
Create art and enjoy it too.
Live each moment as if it’s your last. It might sound like a cliché, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
