Someone you love is dying…
You see it, you know it. Your soul recognizes it won’t be long. Or will it?
You feel helpless, useless, hopeless as you realize the control you thought you had has been no more than just a mere mirage.
The road you are on as you wait is unfamiliar — full of twists and turns and unlit spots where you see only inches in front of you. The darkness is frightening. But at least you still have that. The familiar darkness of sorrow.
You replay all the terse, angry words of a lifetime. The unkind thoughts. The harsh deeds. And you’ve made peace with it all. Or maybe you haven’t and so you continually try to banish those demons from your mind. Until they no longer matter.
Whatever the case, someone you love is dying and you sit at their bedside — or maybe they are not there yet. Maybe they were just diagnosed with the bleakest of all outcomes. And you sit at their eventual bedside thinking the worst before it’s time.
How do you go on without them? How do you live any kind of life? How do you breathe?
You plead with God to make them well as you watch them not get better. You promise anything to keep them here. Perhaps you rail against Him because He does not do what you ask and, because it’s not fair. And it’s not.
You want to take their place. But you can’t. And they would not want you to. They would not let you.
You wish so very much for normal as your new normal unfolds daily, until your new normal is your now normal. Waiting. Fitfully sleeping. Praying. Hoping. Breathing. Somehow breathing.
There are changes in your loved one that sometimes you don’t see through the eyes of love because, they are too painful to acknowledge. You are shocked at old pictures that prove — yes, yes — there are changes. Very marked changes.
You see them struggle. They laugh. You laugh together. You cry. Perhaps silently or when you are alone — perhaps together — tears of frustration because you can’t make them better. Tears because it’s unfair. Tears because you feel the deepest soul sorrow that exists.
You say all that you wish you’d said to them. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe they already know, and you know they know as your eyes meet in a full gaze that is not uncomfortable. The knowing gaze that says “I forgive you” — that says, “I love you”.
All that does not matter now anyways.
Time matters. The time you have now matters. However much time that is. You ravenously take it in, gulp in the air they breathe and make it your own — gasping for more of them. One more day. One more hour. One more minute. Each heartbeat the tick of a winding down clock.
Until they are gone. Gone from your sight. But never, never, gone from your soul.
Someone you love has died. And you will never be the same. But you would do it all again if given the chance. The loving, the living, the losing. It’s all worth it.
Do not allow yourself to die with them. Grieve. Live fiercely. Love deeply. It’s what you wanted for them.
It’s what they want for you.
Jackie Deems Copyright 2020
