I was listening to music the other day and a song popped up that I hadn’t heard in years. It was “Everything I Own” by Bread.
For some reason the chorus hit me hard:
“Is there someone you know,
You’re loving them so
But taking them all for granted?
You may lose them one day
Someone takes them away
And they don’t hear the words you long to say.”
In the days that followed, I couldn’t get those lyrics out of my head. It was clear that I needed to learn something.
I remember a few years back, I stopped to visit my cousins after an interview. Frank had made banana bread. He was famous for his bread and the fact that he loved to share it with people. I got to take a loaf home that day. I admired his giving spirit and I wanted to do a video interview with him on allmomdoes.com to show how he made his bread and to share his larger-than-life personality. But, because I had lots of time to do it, I put it on a back burner.
A few months later, Frank was gone. No one knew that cancer had invaded his body and would take him quickly. I never got to make that video or tell him how special I thought he was.
My great Aunt Mary was the first woman to graduate from Western State University. What stories she had to tell, and her house was like a museum. I wanted to get her history and hear all those wonderful stories. I wanted to tell her how brave I thought she was for going against the standards of her time. She died before I took the time to do that.
My mom was a sensitive soul and complained of imaginary illnesses for most of her life. We joked that her tombstone would read “I Told You I Was Sick”. So, when she was ill, it didn’t seem real. I went with her when her oncologist told us that she had six months left to live. Six months seemed like long enough to have conversations and share love. Ten days later, she was gone. I didn’t get the chance to have most of those conversations.
My dad was a Nazi concentration camp survivor. He only told us the few funny stories he had about the tricks he played on the guards. I wanted to know more, how that experience affected him and how he was changed by it. Once again, I waited too long and he died suddenly before I could hear the rest of the story and tell him how brave I thought he was.
We always think we have time, time to tell people we love them, time to gather family history and share love. It’s always shocking when that time is cut short and we’ve missed those opportunities forever.
I tend to go overboard now. I’ve been known to say, “I love you” and give hugs to package delivery people, store clerks or random people in shops. And, you know what? They might find me a bit weird, but no one is mad when I give them some love.
I just don’t want to miss any more opportunities. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring or even if there will be a tomorrow and I don’t want to leave things unsaid any more.
Read more of Ann’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
