Living and Loving Well
Two weeks ago our friends received the call to go comfort a newly widowed expectant mother. At 1am that morning our friends embraced a woman--six months pregnant--who was facing the funeral plans of her husband while her baby--their baby--unassumingly kicked about from inside her womb.
I remembered a conversation I'd had with this mother-to-be just three months earlier. She was in the process of changing locations to reduce overhead. She seemed hurried and curt. "Not the way to speak to someone trying to give you their business," I mused.
But her tone didn't fit at all with our previous encounters. Whether on the phone or in person, she had always been upbeat and pleasant, going out of her way to be accommodating. I wondered what might be going on in her life that could be reason for this change. The first possibility that floated through my head, besides pregnancy hormones, was marital difficulties. The stress of a new baby on the way, combined with whatever financial issues were causing her to reduce overhead, could challenge even the best marriage.
As I heard the news of her husband's death, our phone call flooded my thoughts. Had I just caught her at a tired, hormonal moment? Or had her marriage been struggling? Whatever was going on three months ago, today she was facing her third trimester, the labor and delivery of her child...every waking minute for the rest of her life...alone.
Had she lived the last hours of her husband's life well? Had she loved him well when that last opportunity unknowingly presented itself? Or did she grieve her last moments with him?
Had he lived and loved his final hours well? Did he leave her with a warm embrace and a soft kiss? Or will her last memory of him forever be a stern look and cross words?
We are all dying...none of us knows when. How am I living my life? Am I letting little annoyances rob me of simple pleasures? I don't want a terminal illness to be my motivation for getting my priorities right.
What about you? Are you living and loving your final hours well?