we are not promised tomorrow: reclaiming the word “love”
June 12th, 2007
“How are you doing, Christy?”
It was late Sunday night; I could hear it in her voice; the tone betraying what was to come.
“I’m all right… Mom — what’s going on?”
“Chris…your Uncle Jim passed away suddenly tonight.”
Silence screamed as my heart went numb.
–
Uncle Jim was my favorite uncle. He was vibrant — an attorney who clearly enjoyed life and enjoyed living it; family gatherings around the holidays were usually hosted at his house. He’d don a white chef’s hat and create the most tantalizing feasts imaginable. As a young child, I had a hard time differentiating between “Uncle Jim, professional chef” and “Uncle Jim, chef-as-a-pastime” - his creations were that amazing. I blame the chef hat for my confusion.
After Dad passed away, our families did not get together as often. Time passed. I tried to keep in touch, but life gets in the way. And before you know it, your mother is calling to tell you he’s gone.
No chance to say “goodbye.” No chance to convey to him that he was my favorite.
When did I grow up and realize the need to tell him?
When did I miss that opportunity?
Do we ever realize it until it’s too late?
–
I’ve experienced so much loss in my life, and perhaps the irony lies in that I am, in a strange and odd way, somehow thankful for it – not for the loss itself, for I still bear the wounds, but for what God teaches you through your grief.
At work, I overhear some of the gals mentioning that they’ve never lost someone. I quietly start running down the mental list of all the friends and family members I’ve had to say goodbye to at the grave.
The reason I’m thankful that I have experienced loss is because it gives you a new lease on life; it makes living today that much more important. Each loved one I lose, causing me to deeply grieve my loss, is a reminder to me to not take today for granted.
–
I use the word “love” freely. Not because I want to cheapen it, but because I highly value it, and I have refused to abstain from telling those in my life how much I love them or how much I value them.
As a whole, we’re shy to use the word. It is so overly used in today’s society, it’s lost much of its meaning, but I’m on a one-woman mission to restore its profundity. I’ve been questioned on my prolific use of it, implicitly being accused of adding to the dilution of the word’s value, but the reality is that I know, firsthand, that we are not promised tomorrow; we are only given today. I will not assume I have tomorrow to tell someone I love them; I will not assume that tomorrow I can let them know how much they are valued. The saying may be cliché, but it’s cliché only because it betrays an absolute truth: man does not know his time.
So remember that the next time you see someone who has impacted your life; get used to using the word “love.” Practice saying it, if you must. Get used to people not knowing what to do, initially, upon receiving that affirmation from you, but sit back, and quietly watch what your sincere use of it does to your relationships, what it does to you. It starts to infect you and those you love with a deep sense of well-being, a deep sense of worth, a deep sense of reciprocal connectedness.
Don’t leave for tomorrow what can be said today.
- Christen Patterson
June 2007
Goodbye, Uncle Jim. I loved you.
In loving memory. June 3, 2007.
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