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The Day My Life Changed
Exactly six months ago tonight I had my last conversation with my wife.
I made a blood donation and planned to go to a meeting but I felt compelled to spend the evening with Faye, my wife, who had been sick with the flu. Ordinarily, I would have gone to the meeting and talked in the morning. But that night I had to go home.
We talked for a while but my ordinarily chatty lady wasn’t herself. My last words to her were “Goodnight,” “I love you,” and “I’ll see you in the morning.”
When I got up, she was gone. The most energetic, health-obsessed woman in the world was gone, apparently from a heart attack.
My life has changed since then; of course, it has. But I’ve changed in many ways — some subtle, some not so subtle.
My heart is more tender. I seem to see grieving people everywhere.
Living by the values God has given me is much more important. I have much less patience with conversations that don’t offer value. Doing the important stuff now is more important. And I’m much less concerned about the opinion of others. I’m more patient with some things but less patient with others.
Oh, I also have two tattoos now.
Published in General
Prayers for you and your family, and welcome to our neighborhood.
After a loss in my family, I realized that most grieving people welcome questions about their loss. Unfortunately, many people avoid discussing the subject because they think they will make you feel worse. I always thought people’s silence hurt much more. We had church people bringing in food for a few weeks (when in doubt – make food!) and some people breezed in with big smiles on their faces – completely avoiding the reason for the visit. Others came and asked questions – and let us talk….and talk….and talk – and it really felt like they were helping us to carry a burden.
Going through that loss has made me much braver with and, hopefully, much more sensitive to those who are hurting.
I’m going to give my wife an extra hug tonight…
Not to dismiss your right to worry, but my dad came from a family of “early diers” and he lived to be 90.
Nothing is written in stone.
Amen to that :)
Thank you for sharing. I read last night next to my wife and felt a pang of my own. She is my light in this world and would hate to lose her.
Give her an extra hug.
Thank you for writing this. I think a lot of us don’t know what to say, and say almost nothing out of fear of saying the wrong thing. This is helpful.
I feel the need to respond to your post and acknowledge your pain. However, I don’t have anything helpful or coherent to say. My life changed 39 weeks, 5 days and 1 hour ago when my wife passed away from lung cancer. My grief has remained intense, but I like to think I am dealing with it better. Perhaps at some point I’ll gain so insight and perspective, but as of now, I’m in a fog. So, I have confirmed that I don’t have anything helpful or coherent. (Which is very frustrating!).
As for now, to you and others who are dealing with the loss of a loved one, “May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you and give you peace “.
That’s to be expected. It’s hard to be coherent in grief.