Preventative Maintenance

Tough times indeed. Completely random happenings. People die all the time. Sometimes you can see it coming, other times you get no warning. You hear about it all the time, read about it somewhere, but someone you know? That's much more difficult to deal with.
Seems that's what going around now. I just heard a friend of mine died in his sleep. No warning, no chance to say goodbye. It just happened. Then I heard another friend lost her coworker. She had cancer though. But this was still unexpected. She was just diagnosed four weeks prior and was finishing up the first stage of treatment. She was doing well from what I heard, then she just died. That's how it happens. You just die. Unless of course you're ill and/or dying. Then you die a little each day. Another friend of mine has a grandmother in the hospital, she's dying. It'll happen and no one will be surprised, but there's still the loss. The empty space that a person, relative, coworker or loved one used to be. There's a million different ways to mourn and even someways that aren't mourning, but that's for another time. Just a week ago I was thinking of the whole losing someone you love thing. No matter how much you think you're prepared, you aren't. No matter how many times you've been through this, it doesn't get any easier. But while in the middle of all that I did write a post, just decided not to post it. Thought it might help to write it out, my eyes only kinda thing. Well in light of recent events, I thought perhaps I should post it. Even if it never gets read, just to have it out there. Who knows, after I die, next weekend or many many years from now, perhaps someone important will read it and smile. Or someone else will read it and get the message, maybe pass it along somehow...


Preventative Maintenance
  We were in love.
  So madly in love and I've never known anything so all encompassing before or since.
  I used to say "I love you" with a kiss on the forehead while you were still sleeping as I left for work.
  Why?
  Just in case something horrible happened I wanted to say that at least I got to tell you I loved you before it was over.
  Does it still count if you were asleep?
  Does it still count if you didn't hear it?
  Would you really ever know how much I loved you?
  Did it change anything in the end?
  Yes. It meant something to me, that's why I did it. And if something horrible had happened? It might have meant the world to you as well. So in the end, yes. It was all worth it.


  Every little bit of it.