Life is love and love is life. They go hand in hand. It seems that once we reach a certain age we start thinking about the future and finding a partner.
It just happens.
I have a friend who I meet at the church I attend. She is a bubbly, beautiful, kind and caring woman who I will call Deb. She is very family-oriented, a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She was always in search of what to do to make her relationship with her husband better. For some reason Deb and her husband of 20+ years had a difficult time relating.
Last week Deb’s husband suddenly and unexpectedly died. His heart stopped and he lingered for a few days before he slipped from this world.
All the things that were a hindrance to Deb and her husband’s relationship faded into the distance, as a vapor, becoming trivial and unimportant as the family gathered around his hospital bed.
All the things that mattered so very much, the things that were said and done, (and the things that weren’t), drifting away, slowly fading into thin air…
And now he is gone, and Deb is left with memories and regrets.
Why is it that we make such huge deals out of things that really won’t matter when the end comes? Life is a vapor, and if this is true, then what’s the deal with all the striving we do to get what we want from the people we care about?
If we could only live our lives with the very real knowledge that we only get one life, one day at a time, and that the big deals aren’t really big at all.
Why can we not carry with us the fact that we are given a span of time on the earth and when it’s up, it’s up?
Why do we not understand that none of us know how much time we have individually been granted until it’s time to go?
If we could, then I figure we would make different choices along the way, about the big things and the small. But if that were possible, then we wouldn’t be afforded the opportunities to engage in the struggles of life, and we would miss out on the multiple chances we are given to take the hard knocks life delivers to us (like it or not) and allow our hearts to be transformed, one event at a time.
This lesson, you know, the one we struggle with most of our lives on how to relate well with those we love, can only be learned through hard times and uncomfortable situations. And even then some of wait longer still to grasp hold of that truth.
Life is short.
The little things matter and need to be addressed, more often than not, with a trusted friend and not the “offending” party.
Life is love and love is life and in the end, that’s all that really matters.
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