Today I had the sad news that the husband of Betty Jo, my dear friend at Digiscribbles passed away unexpectedly on October 14. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel to lose your loved one and my thoughts go out to Betty Jo and her family.
Last year a close friend was taken seriously ill and to try to get a perspective on the fact of death I read Joan Didions book “The year of magical thinking”. It’s a beautiful but also devastating book in the sense that it is very precise and truthful and desperately honest about the feeling of loss and grief. She writes that “Grief takes us to a place none of us knows till we reach it” and I also felt when I read it that it took me places that I would not otherwise have gone – and in a way didn`t want to go! I had to put it down many times because it was too painful to go on reading but I always picked it up again. Reading it left me with an even stronger conviction that life is very precious and that we must always remember how little we know about what the future holds in store for us. Therefore we have to seize the day and tell our loved ones over and over again how much we love them.
Life changes fast
Life changes in the instant
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
Joan Didion
Dearest Betty Jo, there are no words to encompass such sadness! But it is my belief that grief is a tribute to love. Those who can feel grief and bereavement are fortunate because they have loved!
Jeanette
3 comments:
Innerst inne vet jag att livet kan ändra sig väldigt fort. Att just den stunden som varar just nu tar slut fortare än jag hinner blinka. Jag vet att nästa stund kan bli helt annorlunda. Då känner jag glädje att jag har fått uppleva alla dessa stunder. Men jag är så rädd att en dag händer det något dem jag älskar. Så rädd att jag låter bli att tänka på att livet är så skört egentligen.
Du skriver så fint, till och med om de svåraste saker i livet. Vilken gåva du har Jeanette! Jag hoppas att din bloggkompis och hennes familj hittar en ny väg här i livet.
Kram
Anna
Yes you are right, no grief without love. But I think sometimes it's just too much. I think we human beings are not built to know that one has an awfull disease of which one is going to die or worse, having a loved one in that position. We human beings are designed to love and to attach and not to say goodbye. When my mother died unexpectedly my youngest was just 3 months old and I was in my maternity leave. It felt so double: being so happy that he was born at one side, feeling so sad that my mother died on the other hand. And to be honest to me life just sucked; what was the use of having a baby when this was the start of saying goodbye again? Yet it felt like an important lesson; one that I never realised so well before. It is death itself that makes life so valuable. You have to make your choices right and enjoy the moment, always, never postpone and yes indeed always tell every friend that you love them and appreciate them.
I love your blogposts Jeanette, each and every one, your comments are cherished and I know in real life we would be friends! Hugs!
Thank you so much Sweetheart for you post. I must look for that book.
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