There is loss. And there is a kind of loss that knocks the wind out of you because it arrives without warning. No slow decline. No preparation. No long goodbye that allows your heart to quietly start making accommodations for what is coming.
Someone I loved died suddenly last week at 47 years old.
Forty-seven.
He spent what sounded like a beautiful day with his family. A normal day. A day that probably felt like any other day. There were conversations, routines, maybe plans for tomorrow, a future barbecue, definitely complaints about work, maybe laughter over something silly that won’t seem silly anymore. Then he went home, collapsed, and days later he was gone.
There is something uniquely disorienting about sudden loss because your heart never got the chance to begin preparing. It leaves a feeling of unfinishedness, of “this cannot possibly be the end of the sentence.”
Gone.
Even writing the word feels strange because the mind rejects it before the heart finally catches up.
How can someone be here one moment and then not here at all?
Our family and extended family are devastated. We are walking around in that fog that grief creates, where you find yourself staring into the refrigerator forgetting why you opened it, replaying details over and over, trying to locate the moment where reality somehow got rearranged without your permission.
Sudden loss hits different. There is no runway. No chance to brace yourself for impact. No opportunity to say the things you would have said had you known there was a countdown clock quietly ticking in the background.
And if I am being truthful, this grief didn’t arrive alone. Grief rarely travels by itself. My mother also passed away and at an even younger age. So, grief has pulled up a chair and invited old grief to sit beside it.
Suddenly I am not only mourning him; I’m mourning her too. I’m mourning my grandchild who at age 21, was just gone. I’m mourning every beautiful person who deserved more years.
It’s like someone opens the grief gates and suddenly…..
You grieve the mother you should still be able to call.
You grieve birthdays and holidays and ordinary Tuesdays that should have existed but never will.
You grieve conversations that never happened.
You grieve what should have been.
And sadly, at this age, I am realizing that grief starts showing up everywhere.
Not just in death.
You grieve shocking and expected losses.
You grieve children growing up.
You grieve parents aging.
You grieve your own changing body.
You grieve seasons of your life ending.
You grieve the person you used to be.
You grieve realizing that time is no longer this endless thing stretching out before you like a long open highway. When you’re young, mortality belonged to someone else. It belonged to old people.
Then, all the sudden you reach an age where every phone call after a certain hour makes your stomach knot up. The phone calls you didn’t get make your stomach knot up!
Every unfamiliar number appearing on your phone late at night creates a moment of hesitation. (During the day, it’s Spam!)
Every unexpected text begins with your heart quietly whispering, “please don’t let it be bad news”.
And maybe that sounds dark. But strangely, while grief has a way of breaking your heart open, it also has a way of stripping away the nonsense. The BS. Not the inspirational social media kind where we all pretend tomorrow is guaranteed and slap a motivational quote over a sunset.
This loss was devastating, but it was also a reminder. Today matters. You matter. In our sadness, in our shock, and in our grief, we do not have to transform this loss immediately into wisdom or gratitude just because we woke up today. We can hold both things at once: I am grateful I am here, and I am heartbroken that he isn’t. I’m heartbroken for everyone that loved him. I’m heartbroken for the son he left behind.
Today is a real reminder that none of us know….
None of us know when we have had our last ordinary Tuesday.
None of us know when we have laughed at our last joke.
None of us know when we have said our last goodbye without realizing it was a goodbye at all.
Today could be it.
For any of us.
Not in a fearful way. In a truthful way.
Today matters.
Not because you need to suddenly quit your job and move to Italy.
Not because you need to start climbing mountains, jumping out of planes, or checking off bucket-list items.
Today matters because of the small things.
So…..
Text the person.
Make the call.
Sit a little longer.
Say I love you.
Laugh at something stupid.
Take the picture.
Eat dessert.
Leave dishes in the sink if it means staying at the table longer with someone you love.
Because when everything gets stripped away, the things that remain are usually not the grand moments.
They are the ordinary ones.
And today, while I am carrying sadness and grief and questions that don’t have answers, I am also carrying gratitude.
Because I woke up today.
I got another ordinary day.
And ordinary days, it turns out, are not ordinary at all.
They are everything.
Today matters.
We love you, Keith.
🎯💯💯💯💯