I’m having one of those moments where I want to do the cliché thing and tell everyone to hold their loved ones close, tell them you love them, that sort of thing. Because I just lost someone and I’m in that raw, open place that happens when something breaks down my walls and I’m more feeling than intellect for a moment or two….

But then after a bit I start thinking again, trying to process loss, which for me is really a combination of feeling and thinking it through, always trying make sense of everything from the deepest part of me I can.

The hollow feeling that opens up inside when someone dies can probably be attributed to a multitude of causes, but what I keep coming back to today is lost futures.

I don’t know about you, but I imagine forward, and there are people there. People I expect to be living in that fast forward with me, people who are supposed to show up.

This friend I was going to travel with, when life opened up a bit, and she would have been part of the old lady Golden Girls commune I’m planning (I really am planning this) if she wanted to be. We were going to grow old together, or, at least, older.

This early goodbye, it, wasn’t part of the plan.

When life opened up a bit….

I’m not sure that it does, open up a bit. Or, at least, there are no guarantees of this. And here’s where that cliché part of holding everyone close comes in. Except I’m not sure that’s a fair or reasonable thing to ask of ourselves. I think we do the best we can, and love A LOT of people. Maybe we should love fewer, so we can hold them closer? I don’t know. Maybe the point is really to be as present as possible in the moments we have, which is tough, but somehow feels more attainable.

Futures are lost when someone dies, at least those ones. But the present remains. So maybe instead of reminding everyone to hold their loved ones closer, and tell them you love them – because we’re doing this already, right? We’re that wise already? Maybe we take an extra moment while we’re holding them to breathe in the scent of their hair, to listen to them when they’re speaking of mundane things and important ones, maybe we just try and soak in the present a little more.