I DO NOT know how to begin. The week began with news of a dear family friend's passing. It's a sad note in my almost half a century life, but it's really sort of expected. Nobody comes out of life alive, anyway.
But it is scary because you don't really get to choose how to go (but if you did have the liberty to choose, would you bravely pick a date?). And, you don't really know when. Actually, some people do. They choose when to meet up with the Big Guy in the sky. Just this morning, I was going through my emails and found an old email from 2010. It was from Kristina and she was saying goodbye. My friend had been suffering from a rare neurological disease and at that time, she was already on life support. The email said she was donating what organs she could after which she was saying goodbye forever.
I had read the email a day late and I regretted not checking my email earlier so that I could at least be with her during her last hours albeit we were on two different continents.
It's always more difficult for the ones left behind. Suddenly, you realize that you have many things left unsaid and tons of things you had planned to do that will never be done.
I struggle too, as my youngest sister passed early this year I feel the void most days but I have come to accept it. Still, there are days when I overcome with such grief whenever I realize that I will never see her again.
About a few weeks ago, I got a notice from her friend and colleague that someone had already applied for her position. We needed to get her stuff from her office. That feeling of finality felt like ice cold hands on my bare back than I was overcoming with sadness. The last nail on the coffin (no pun intended), the feeling of finality that she had left the mortal plane, melancholia overload. Suffice to say, I did not go. I would still want to think that she has gone off somewhere on an indefinite vacation.
I know I'm usually bright and sunny but we all have dark days and I don't mind sharing mine with you. It's times like this that we gain a better understanding and appreciation for life and the people we share ours with.
Sometimes, we become complacent and sort of expect that they'd be there for a long time, until you wake up with one less person in your circle so take every opportunity to show how much you care for them.