Friend's Pain

We’ve all heard the phrase, We Aren’t Promised Tomorrow, and it doesn’t mean much until you learn the hard way that it is true.

Early last evening I got a phone call that the ex-wife of my friend Michael’s best friend was killed in a motorcycle accident earlier in the evening. Up until that moment that he got that call, he was enjoying a guy’s weekend with friends from college. They were up all night making arrangements and then getting him to the airport at the crack of dawn to get him home to be with his kids.

Honestly, you just never know. And it just hammers it home that we’d better make the most of every single moment and not hesitate to grab life by the horns and just go for it.

I think of the saying, You Only Regret the Things You Didn’t Do, Not the Things You Did.

I don’t know if death has made me bolder. I don’t think so as I was always this way. However, it does make you think. Is this problem/issue/person/etc…worth my time and am I going to waste precious time on it/them? And on the flip side, if it’s legal, fun, and makes me happy, why not do it?

My friend Terri and I decided early on when both of our late husbands were just gone, that we were going to say “Yes” to as much as possible. We were sick of grief and were trying to build our lives moving forward. We did a good job and had a lot of laughs, tears, and fun along the way.

I don’t know if it’s possible to “get” those lessons without having gone through the issues that got us there. Seems to be that everyone says they never understood until they were in that position. It’s a crummy way to learn. However, if you are reading this you are likely either in that position or you care about someone who is.

Be kind and live life the best you can. It’s all we’ve got. On this earth anyway.