When Life Really Does Change In An Instant

You know that people say these things; "Life can change in an instant"... And although you cognitively know it to be true,
because it is, and you know that and so do I, you just can't really get it until something big happens in your own life
or to someone that you love, I think.

November 6 is my sister's birthday and my mom and dad's anniversary.
My sister was born on their first anniversary.
It's hard to believe that November 6  was just two months ago, when I got the call that my dad had just had a stroke.
Because it feels longer... and shorter.

When my sister called, I knew it was bad.
Then my brother called.
Should he wait for me? Drive himself? He didn't know what to do.
Bleeding on the brain.
I knew it was really bad, I just knew.
I didn't know what to do either.
Get all your stuff, turn out the lights, lock up... I had to tell myself those things.

I got the call right as I was about to leave work, right before the kids were to get out of school.
So I had to run home, meet the kids at the door and wait for a few minutes for my mother-in-law to get there.
I was near hysterics and trying desperately to hold it together.
Let it be noted here that I do not function beautifully under stress. Ehem.
I felt guilty that I wasn't able to hold it together just a little bit better for the kid's sake.
They knew I was upset, they had seriously worried looks on their faces, I felt horrible.
I also knew that there was a chance that things were going to be really bad and I also couldn't hide that from the kids though.

Between the time I initially got the call at work until I got into the emergency room, was probably about 35 minutes total.
I was sick.
All I could think of was that there was a really good chance that I might not ever see my dad again.
It may be too late by the time I get there.
What if it was too late?
Fear. There was so.much.fear.
What about all the things I never said or did?
I just wanted to be there, with my mom and dad and for everything to be okay.

In those first moments and days and weeks, I made promises to myself and to God and to anything
and anyone I could think of, to please just let him get through this.
Let us all get through this.
As the days and moments and weeks went on though, the biggest thing I told myself was that I would live my life differently though,
no matter what happened, because of all of this.
Life is short, it really is so so short.
We are not promised tomorrow.

It's time to stop putting things off, no more: I will be happy when this or that happens, when I am in a better financial situation... 
A happier place in life, a better job, a different house or city, once I finally lose the weight.
There may not be a tomorrow or next year, all we really have is now.


I have much more to say on all of this but I will leave it at that for today. 
Today my dad is doing good, he is here with us and I am so thankful for that.
When I say "when life really does change in an instant" please know that as I say that I also recognize that this may be a big change for us
with long-lasting effects but overall it had/has a good outcome. My dad is alive.
I know catastrophic things happen to people every day with very dire outcomes and they don't get the chance to say and do the things
they wanted to do, that they thought they still had time to do.
Everyone doesn't get this little nudge from Life, as a reminder of how precious every day really is.

{ Escaping the ICU and getting to see the sunset from the hospital windows and seeing that

 life goes on whether yours is standing still, or not...}

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Thank you for reading.