Heavy Heart

This afternoon my friend and coworker got the worst call of her life. To make a long and tragic story short, her husband was killed in a plane crash this afternoon. He was a commercial pilot and an airshow performer. He was a father of four kids and the love of my coworker's life. My heart aches for their loss. It breaks my heart to know that right now, her world has crumbled. I think of how when something like this happens, your new reality reveals itself in waves and how those waves reveal themselves over time. Suddenly you realize that you'll never see them again. You try to remember what the last thing you said to one another and realize you'll never have another conversation. You try to grasp what a future without that person will be like and become overwhelmed. No more Christmases. No more date nights. No more phone calls in the middle of the day. No more expectations of a life together. Everything shifts and changes forever.

I know from personal experience that the worst part of a tragedy, at least in my opinion, is that second when you find out. That gut-ripping, nauseating and terrifying moment where the scream gets lodged in your throat and you feel as if everything you have known to be true was a fallacy. Years later and I can still relive that moment. I don't think it ever goes away. Even the hours after your new knowledge is in some ways, less excruciating. It is hard to put into words and again, it is just my experience but to me that first second of your new reality is the most devastating. I don't envy my friend that moment.

It is so easy in our day to day lives to expect that our lives will go on forever. It is almost an arrogant belief that everyday will go on the same as the day before. We will get up, do the mundane tasks we need to do then repeat it all the next day. We forget that we are all really just renting this space we occupy and when our lease is up, it's up. We need to remind ourselves of this everyday by loving more fiercely and living more thoroughly. Let's all try and squeeze as much life into our lives as we can.