I just got the news a friend's husband passed away.  He'd been sick.  But he'd been out and about because we just saw him at the scholarship presentation for the Bailey Brigade a week ago.  He looked so good.  I spoke as I walked by and he smiled in return.  I was relieved to see he was still getting out and about because he'd been in a wheelchair for awhile.

His twin sons graduate in two weeks.  Now they will do it without their daddy.

It's taking me back to the night Scott died.  I have no idea sitting here how I got home.  I know I rode in the ambulance up to the hospital, but blank spaces are all I have now on how I got back.

I know on some levels what she is feeling, although every loss is uniquely different.  With a terminal illness you know it's coming.  You just don't know when, but you think you have prepared yourself on some levels.  There is a space between the moment everything changed aka the diagnosis and the moment you are really and truly alone in a way you never have been before that I am not finding words to describe. 

But you haven't prepared.  You can't. 

There is no way to feel it until it happens.  Then the shock sets in that it actually happened and you wonder how you can be this surprised when you knew it was coming all along.

I hope he'd heard his favorite song recently.  I hope he'd seen his best friends.  I hope he left nothing on the table and said the words that needed to be said.   I hope he had so many hugs in the days before.

I hope his passing was sweet.  I hope it was peaceful.  I hope he was surrounded by those he loved.  I hope they got the moment, whatever it was, that will carry them through some of the darkest days ahead.  I hope they saved his last voicemail.  I hope they have his handwriting somewhere to treasure.   I hope they know they are not alone and they will get through this...somehow.

My boys didn't make it.  They were in the hospital parking lot on their way up.  It was a couple of nurses and me and Scott.  Scott hadn't been able to talk in days.  I had stepped away from his bedside to get my phone to text my best friend the room number to bring the boys to when I heard his last breath rather than saw it.  Everything froze and I had to wait for my children to walk in to what they'd missed knowing things would never be the same for them again.

I hope her closest people are with my friend, this new widow.   I hope they all still stand beside her months and years later.  I feel helpless.  All I can do is hope and cry for her and her children.

But I hope for you too.   I hope you read this and reach out to someone you have been meaning to but haven't made time.  Life changes in an instant and we don't know which one it will be.