I blatantly copied this image from Pinterest. I have zero right to use it but I had to share it. If I knew who the artist was I’d give credit where credit is due. Because the minute I saw it, it instantly brought tears to my eyes.
I’ve had it for a while now and every time I go to post it I never know where to begin to try to put into words how this hits me deep down in the guts in a place that’s just pure emotion.
Time. What a mindfucking concept. Sorry for the language but it is fitting. We are all only given so much of it. Sometimes we know that the hour glass is down to its last grains of sand, but I’m not sure that is any easier being aware that you’re almost out of time. Sometimes it’s like a watch battery that stops mid tick of the second hand. No slow down, no warning. It just stops.
But you don’t know which category you’ll fall into in the end… if you’ll see it coming or be blindsided. Not only when it comes to the amount of time you have, but also the amount of time your loved ones have.
This lack of knowledge is simultaneously the cruelest trick time has to play on us all and yet the most benevolent gift it could give us.
The potential for the blindside.. especially after you’ve experienced it… is terrifying. PTSD…. nightmare inducing… unable to sleep.. terrifying. The concept that anyone you love could be permanently ripped out of your life in an instant… I’m surprised it doesn’t stunt mankind from functioning to be honest. I’m shocked it doesn’t ruin me completely sometimes. On occasion it feels like it just might, even now.
But the potential for the blindside also does something else… it makes you cherish every single moment you did have together. Every memory, every bittersweet reminder of how lucky you were to have experienced something so special.
It makes you cherish every moment you do have left here. It makes you look at your family and your friends and your loved ones with a deeper appreciation of how valuable they truly are.
We all start running out of time the minute we are born. Some of us just get more of it than others. But if the past 15 months have taught me anything it really isn’t about the amount of time you’re given but what you do with it that matters. How you make the most of the time you are given. Make sure that your time is measured in quality because quantity is never a guarantee.
Someone said something to me tonight that I’ve often thought myself. That it’s not fair that I had to lose Chris, the love of my life.. or that this person had to lose the love of his life… when there are plenty of couples out there who don’t even like each other or treat each other well.
And at first glance in that comparison, I feel sorry for myself, I feel sorry for other widows and widowers who had the real deal, that true love, and had to lose it all. But then the more I think about it…. I feel sorry for them. For those people who don’t have what Chris and I found. Who aren’t happy but are staying for the kids or for the convenience or out of fear and complacency. They may get more time than we got. And that sucks. And he is right, it is not fair. But we got the quality. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
I’d rather have had one single day of his love only to lose it than to have never known it at all. Because if the quality of time you get with someone, and the love you have is strong enough… it is enough to transcend time, and last forever.