Good Morning,
There are times and opportunities in your life that you should not miss. I’m not talking about those obvious times like holidays or birthdays, weddings or baptisms and vacations or graduations. Sure those are important and are certainly meaningful milestones in our lives. No… these are opportunities much less obvious and can be easy to miss when mixed in with the fray of our busy lives. I’m talking about those “Stop and Smell the Roses” times. In this case when you have an opportunity to say goodbye to an old and dear friend and a final goodbye to someone who has been a part of your life for a large portion of it.
Why is it that we can have difficulty saying what we really feel to those we love? Could it be some sort of fear of rejection buried in our subconscious that makes us hold back? That moment when we could be left standing alone on the stage of life and have forgotten our lines? Or is it too “sappy” and you know…real men don’t do that? I suspect it happens more than we would like to think and well after all, “there is always tomorrow” or “they know I love them anyway, even if I don’t say it as often as I could/should.” Right?
Our wisdom, insight and much of our personality comes from our life experiences and few can be as provocative or poignant as the time spent at the bedside of a loved one near the end of their life’s journey. Given the opportunity taken, it can become a time for sharing without holding back saying those things that so many times are left unsaid in our daily lives.
Looking back now, and as I experienced with both my mother and my father soon after they had passed from this world, there were things I wished I had said and shared. To this day, there still arise questions I wish I had asked. I suppose it’s that old “hindsight is 20/20” thing that comes around, way too often for me anyway, reminding me when I could have used better judgment. It seems sometimes that it is the “de facto” method I tend to use when learning about life. I realize it is nearly impossible to think of everything to ask at the time when you have to opportunity, but it would have been good to have a list of sorts. Like so many things in life, you don’t know, what you don’t know and therefore you also cannot form the questions until the situation presents. That being said, a good open conversation can be fodder for questions that will come up as insight is gained. 
As time grows short, these things then become the “final gifts” that one has to share. Pieces of oneself left behind for others to remember them by. Pieces of a life, not all of which we will or are ever meant to know, but maybe just enough to understand why they are the way they are. Pieces of a beautiful and complex life puzzle of which there will always be some missing. It is up to us to gather as many pieces as we can while the box is still open.
Love, Dad
Hands Photo: Mine – Wilma Keeney (93) and Me holding hands by her bedside. “Dear Wilma, when you are ready, may God welcome you with open arms.”
Puzzle Piece Missing Photo: Ken Craig