eeyore... that is a sad song
We've lost several family members during my lifetime... in 1999-2000 alone we lost my mom's uncle (80's cancer), my cousin (18 car wreck), my sister-in-law (31 super rare strep infection that shut down her organs, she had 3 kids 1, 3, & 5), my mom's brother (60's cancer), my mom's best friend (50's emphasema or however it is spelled), and my mom's grandmother (over 100)... basically, everybody was on one side of the family. Anyway, it was accidents, sudden illnesses, long illnesses, and old age... some we got to say goodbye to, some we didn't.
And with all of them there have been the "if I'd known". Especially for significant things that it was the "last" time we did... there are so many "lasts" that I just don't remember with my husband, because at the time I didn't realize they would be "the last time". Luckily, two of his sisters, his aunt, my mother, and I were all with him when he died (his mother wasn't, but that's a crappy story about a crappy woman).
Wow... I'm about to start crying thinking of this... but DD(then 4) got to say her goodbyes to her father. We weren't going to have her go up to the hospital... thought it would be too traumatic. Larry was unconscious for a couple of days and my mom calls and says that Kayti "really" wanted to come to the hospital. At that moment it was like a bucket of warm water was poured over my head and this warm woosh went from my head to my toes and said "YES". So, I said yes. Larry woke up right about the time Kayti got there, they communicated (he couldn't talk much), she left, he asked where his mother was and was sad she wasn't there, he went to sleep and never regained consciousness before he died the next day.
Lately, I've been trying to live, think, and love a certain way and (major cornball country music moment) my philosphy can be summed up by Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw.
Garth Brooks... The Dance. And now, I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance... I could have missed the pain, but I'd of had to miss the dance.
Tim McGraw... Live Like You Were Dying. I was finally the husband [mother, daughter, sister] that most the time I wasn't, and I became a friend a friend would like to have, and all of a sudden goin' fishin [WDW, shopping, to a movie] wasn't such an imposition, and I went 3 times that year I lost my dad, well I, I finally read the good book and I took a good long hard look at what I'd do if I could do it all again and then... I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu, and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying, and he said, Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dyin'.
I've got the dance down... and I'm working on living like I'm dying. And everytime I say goodbye to someone I love, in person or on the phone, the last thing I tell them is that I love them.