As some of you may know, recently we lost a very close relative. My wife’s only sister passed away back on October 6th. We lived next door to each other and she nor my wife worked but both were a stay at home wife and mother. For Mary Ann she was a stay at home grandmother as well. She loved her grandchildren and took very good care of them.
Whenever you saw one most of the time you saw the other. Linda and ‘May’, as most people called her, were almost always together. She would call Linda and ask her to go with her somewhere or Linda would call her. Linda would walk to her house to check on her or she would come to our house and sit on the porch with Linda and share a cup of coffee on some mornings.
We always get emails about friendship and love and it would say if you love me send it back to me or send it on to the ones you love or don’t want to lose. Just like everyone else I don’t want to lose any of those I love. Generally I don’t forward many of those emails. Mainly because I have gotten them hundreds of times in the past, maybe even thousands of times and after awhile it starts to get old, boring and annoying. So I’ll read it and then delete it.
There is one thing that I always do and for those of you that do know me is that I always tell people that I love them. I always say if that is the last time I see or speak to them I want them to know that I love them. That’s why I always make it a point to tell those I love that I love them. My mother used to tell us that she loves us then she would say, “I just wanted you to know that because I may forget but you won’t forget.”
In times like these we always reflect on words of those that have gone before us. Little words or comments that are burned into our memory forever. Over the weekend I thought of my father, he would always tell me to always wear a suit and tie. I thought of one of Linda’s uncles, we called ‘Uncle Jim’. He would put his arm around you and say, “Well shug, we all got to go sometime. It’s all part of life.” I thought about one of my own uncles before he passed away his word were, “I’m settin’ on ready.” And of course my mother’s favorite phrase was simply, “Praise the Lord!” She even used that phrase one time at a rest area that had one of those new high-tech automatic flush toilets. Linda came out of the restroom red faced and in tears laughing trying to tell me and of course in a restroom even a whisper would carry a echo.
What is my last word? I love you. Because one day I may forget but you won’t never forget and if we never meet or speak again you’ll always know that. What will be your last word?
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. (Psalms 103:15,16) KJV
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