People do not typically die by the gun.  Often it is a car accident, an illness, or freak event – there is simply no way to tell when something may befall someone we love.

Carpe Diem

Sometimes people recommend that you live each day, take each breath, as though it is your last.Life is a near death experience.  But it isn’t just your life which is a near death experience; it is also the experience of those closest to you.  And everyone, at some point, will face the death of someone they love.

Celebrate those in your life.

Don’t take them for granted, don’t allow yourself to get sucked into the routine of your day and of your life.  Life is precious, absolutely precious, and you should cherish those you love in the same way you cherish your children.  Consciously.  Mindfully.  Fully.

Sadly, sometimes our husband or wife can be the victim of a chronic illness or disease.  Cancer is by no means ‘cured’ and people fall victim to this wasting disease everyday.  The cure can often be just as horrible as the disease and just as heartbreaking.  It is an excrutiating form of water torture to powerlessly watch those we love in pain without even the certainty that it will be ‘right’ in the end.

Open your heart.

I think of no greater bravery, no greater courage, than the courage of someone who stands by their beloved to the end, with an open heart and without shutting down.  We do what we need to do, to make it through, so being there for the tests and procedures and differences in professional opinions becomes just another part of your life.  But to go through all of that with your beloved, fully with your beloved, is the hardest thing someone can do.

Even when facing the death of our life’s partner, the mother or father of our children, and our other half, we must do it with an open heart.  We must still give everything we have, even though we may be afraid that it will only make it more painful in the end.  We must resist the urge to emotionally cut ourselves off from the situation or, worst of all, from our partner.

To those who still have their partners…

To those of you who are not facing the loss of your loved one, realize that you are facing the loss of your loved one.  You are just afforded the luxury of ignorance.

If someone who is watching their wife fade away, or watching their husband get weaker, could give you a message – it might be,

Don’t take this relationship for granted.  Don’t ever take this person for granted.  There is nothing as painful as this…nothing.  Sometimes I watch you and you don’t even realize what you have and it makes me angry.  It makes me angry that you could throw someone away, that you could fall out of love, that you could be so selfish as to think you got married so someone could make you happy.

If you can’t stand beside your beloved now then you can’t be trusted to stand by them when they are dying.  How dare you take your marriage for granted when I would do anything, give anything, to save my own.

Pay attention.  Every moment could be the last moment of your marriage, especially if you are – in every moment – ignoring your marriage.