I got some very sad news, life changing news on Thursday and have been in my head doing a lot of thinking since.
There are moments in life that are life changing and you
will say was that before before ____________ and after ______________ with some
of those moments/events for the rest of your life. Death is one of those as are births, marriage,
adoption, graduation, moving out on your own or moving from one home to
another, break ups, divorce… Some of the
events become less significant as time goes on, and you don’t mention them as
often in stories, like I no longer use my first marriage in 2001 or the birth
of my son in 2005 but I do use my divorce in 2012 and my current marriage or
even when we began dating and the big life altering fight between my husband
and his oldest son quite often. That fight
rocked our world and was a life altering event for us.
My cousin Gary and his wife Barb both got Covid and while
she is on the mend, he stopped breathing Thursday morning, September 16, 2021
around 7:30 am. And so now I’m back in
my head to when my Dad passed away, when my (at the time) father in law passed
away, and how this now is affecting those that were in Gary’s immediate family
now as they are living in the immediate days of his passing. His wife, his
sons, his parents and his brother have forever had their lives changed by this
death. It’s such a tremendous loss and
the grief is unlike anything I’m sure they have endured before. We have family in our lives that it hurts so
when we lose, our parents, siblings, grandparents, spouse, child…each loss different
and it affects us different ways. The grief changes but it never goes
away. I also think that when someone has
lived a long life and we lose them in their later in life when you expect you
would, it’s different than losing someone at 56 as my cousin was. This was such a shock, and so there is no
time to prepare yourself for the loss. I can’t help but feel the pain and loss that
I think they are having and that I watched those having when we lost my father
in law and my own father.
This has also got me thinking more about Covid now too. When my mom told me over the weekend that they
had it, I thought immediately to my experience with it last December and was
not too worried. They were home and
taking care of themselves and there was nothing major happening with them as so
many that I’ve known personally who have had Covid and was my experience. But this sadly was not the case for my cousin.
I know he was a Christian and is in heaven but I couldn’t really
rejoice thinking of him seeing his 4 grandparents and Uncle Denny up in heaven
because as I told my husband, it wasn’t his time! He wasn’t supposed to die this young. Dave said, but was it and it takes me back to
thinking it was his time because nothing is in OUR TIME, it’s all in God’s
time. We don’t understand when we have a
surprising loss like this, or even my Dad dying from lymphoma at age 51. Why is that their time? Why was life cut short? For me, I look back at my Dad’s death & it
led to where I am today. My mom moved
back to Kansas, and I followed, it led me to my now ex husband who gave me my
son and led my Mom to where she is today in her 18 ½ year marriage. I would
love to have my Dad back, but nothing would be as it is today and I can only
imagine where I would be and trust that now as I’m ahead 27 years down the road,
it was meant to happen the way it did and as my life has gone.
Having talked with so many people and hearing so many
stories, Covid doesn’t care if you are healthy or not. It’s going to react in YOUR body however it
does and no one will have any idea until it’s doing it’s thing. You can get it whether you’ve had the vaccine
or not, it doesn’t seem to care on that either.
I refuse to live my life in fear and will continue to put all my trust
in God. I will not bash you if you’ve not had it, I will not bash you if you’ve
had it. The choice is personal and we all
have come to our decision based on our life experiences and that is OK. I have realized in the last couple days though
that to laugh at someone for being so scared and wearing two masks or wearing a
face shield and a mask is not something that I should mock. We ALL have our beliefs and no matter if that’s
having faith or living in fear – we all have a right to that. I choose faith > fear for me.
