In the blink of an eye...

I started today tired and cold and feeling inhuman so I called in to work thinking that a day of playing hooky would be just the thing. I had no plans but instead wanted to spend the day being as lazy as I possibly could. It was raining outside...cold, freezing rain...so the thought of going anywhere was abhorrent. Then the phone rang.

My brother-in-law Ron has always had a sort of on again, off again relationship with the rest of the family. Not for anything the family has actually done but something in his own mind makes him think we don't like him. That's not true. But throughout the years he has made himself scarce, keeping away from family gatherings and staying home with himself. This past holiday was the first time in a long time he opted to come to my sister's for Christmas Day.

He's older but healthy even though he had suffered a near fatal injury in Viet Nam which occassionally flairs up and causes him problems. Yesterday, he was working around the house carrying some things to the basement. Suddenly, on his way back up, he lost his ability to breathe. He couldn't take a breathe and his skin quickly turned ghost white. He made it back to the kitchen and my sister rushed him to the emergency room. He has a huge blood clot in his lung and was just moment's away of having it move to his heart and causing his death.

I went the hospital today to see him lying there in his bed in the critical care unit looking like some futuristic insect attached to any manner of monitors and IV tubing. He spoke quietly through shallow breaths and he was amazed that my sister and I had come to see him at all. Our visit quickly tired him. Talking took too much out of him. He will wait until the end of the week when the docs will know more if the medication they are constantly injecting into his stomach has done it's magic and dissolved the clot. If not, they will move to more aggressive drugs - those that will certainly dissolve it but will also cause him to bleed.

As we left, I kissed his forehead and told him I loved him.

This is one of those events that always drives home the temporary nature of our lives. One minute we are working around the house, the next something inside comes perilously close to stopping us forever. I think about all those lost holidays with him. Those times, when in his mind, we did not want him there, he stayed away. And I think of all those things he still wants to do. I think of my own life. My worries and the things I stress about and wonder if I am also guilty at times of letting this moment, this breath, go by without taking that time to live more, love more and enjoy.

One way or another, my brother-in-law will be fine, though altered, for the rest of his life. I hope he knows that there was sincerity in that kiss and in those words - I love you.