And Then I Didn’t

I’ve always been a planner. By the time we were leaving for a vacation, or even a short weekend jaunt, I had made a list, edited the list, and triple checked the list to make sure everything we planned to take was packed. I would plan weeks in advance, or even months, time permitting. Everything had to go as planned, but rarely did.

I had planned out what my life would look like by the time I was thirty. The closer I got to that magical age, I realized I needed to rethink my plans. There were many more times I had to remap my future.

When I became a widow in 2015, I realized my plans didn’t matter. No amount of planning was going to help if God’s plan was different.

When I lost Gary, my life changed. I changed. I am not the same person. I know longer tolerate BS, and I’ve learned who really cares. But, the big thing that slapped me in the face was how we are not promised tomorrow. I found out how the “we don’t have to do that now, we have plenty of time” is a lie. The whole 30+ days Gary was in CCU, I never believed he wasn’t coming home. I still thought we had plenty of time together. Then, we didn’t. As I watched him die, I was left with a lot of “should haves”, “would haves”, “could haves”. Never wait till tomorrow to say, “I love you”. Never think there will be another time. Live each day as if it were your last.

Make memories, because there will come a time when memories are all you have. Memories are what will get you through a rough day. Some days you will just sit and remember.