peter
“Walking home to an empty house is a weird feeling. She had left a great void behind her. In the past few years, my brother died, my sister died, and recently, I just lost my wife too. One would think that having the experience of losing loved ones in your life will somehow make the next one a little easier to process, or that you would have some kind of toolbox to dampen the hit of the immense grief that piles on the top of you. I was just starting to get a little better mentally after losing my sister, then I lost my brother, and soon after my wife got diagnosed with stage four cancer. She was diagnosed in November and died shortly after. Margaret was in hospice, and when someone gets there, there is a very small chance left of surviving. Despite this, you hardly acknowledge it. I knew that she wasn’t going to come home, but losing her felt so distant and unbelievable. We were together for 40 years; she was there to support me through the toughest and the best times in business. The other day, I made a great business deal, and immediately after, as always, without thinking, I reached for my phone to share the great news with her… The phone rang out once and twice, just to remember that she won’t pick up the phone. In life, without realizing, we all do things for the last time. You never really know which activities or moment of all moments that are a normal part of your day will be the last one day. But you can be sure that there will be a last for everything. I definitely didn’t give enough attention to the significance of those phone calls meant to me. That great business deal doesn’t feel the same without sharing it with her… It’s important to tell people how you feel for them. Always. You never know when the last time that you can.”