The Before and After

Sometimes a person enters your life unexpectedly and fills a place you didn’t know existed. She becomes a confidant, colleague, mentor, and close friend. She eventually calls you her little sis, and this pleases you, and as there’s no end to the friendship insight, you take it for granted. Until the closeness and comfort she gives you evaporates when she passes tragically in a plane accident.
There have been a lot of parallel feelings with this pandemic and my cherished friend Paula’s passing. Both came out of nowhere. Like a thunderbolt striking a tree in half, the world changed from Before to After. The hugs and time together I miss with Paula, are mirrored today in today’s loss of time with family and friends. There’s grief. There’s anxiety. For many it is death and mourning, as over 270,000 globally have passed from COVID (and there is no treatment or vaccine in sight).
There are lessons to be had with both events. Every day is a gift. Truly. Every moment I have with my husband, family, and friends is a potentially fleeting final moment. I treat them as such and hope to have no regrets if the Before becomes the After.