One Life to Love

It's been a while since I wrote. I had a wicked week full of stress, and on Thursday I decided to take a trip to Buffalo on Friday - and I would drive, not fly. The drive is a long one - 7 hours - and especially long when you leave on Friday morning and go back on Sunday morning. The cost of the flight is usually worth the 14 hours of driving. But I wasn't trying to save money or time with this trip. I was trying to stabilize myself. That drive, with Bruce sitting shotgun, and Van Morrison, Jackson Browne and Mark Knopfler wrestling in the back, was pure therapy for me.

For the first two hours, I couldn't get the divorce from my mind because we kind of settled just two days before. I didn't think about the settlement, I thought about the marriage. And I'll miss it. I'll miss him, and I made up my mind that I will concentrate on the goodness of the marriage, not the bad parts. That's not healthy. And I have forgiven him, and I did love him dearly, and, and... well, it's a chapter closed now. This one does have a happy, yet bittersweet, ending. We'll raise our kids together with love and kindness, and that's the most important. Ah... forgiveness, kindness and compassion. Solves everything.

For the next three hours or so, I thought about Jeff and my family. I heard a song by Mark Knopfler called Golden Heart. It's a phenomenal song and I've always loved it. This time I felt it. I realized that my family - brothers, sister and in-laws found our golden hearts through this crisis that Jeff is facing. We found our golden hearts because of the love we have for each other.

"Live your life as though it is your last." I never liked that quote because it was usually stated by somebody throwing back a beer and contemplating some sinister move in their life. Yet, as I drove, I thought about it a bit more. You only get one shot to make the right choices.

Make the right choices.

It's encompassed in the following chorus of the song One Life to Love:

You only get just one time around,
You only get one shot at this,
One chance,
To find out the one thing
That you don't wanna miss,
One day when its all said and done
I hope you see that it was enough,
This one ride,
One try,
One life,
One ride,
One try,
One life,
To love,
To love...

I don't know. I want to be assured by someone or something that I've made the right choices in my life, and usually I know intuitively if I am on the right path. I think we all do. But, at the same time, I'm a little shaken that others don't see it the same way. I can't say I am right because I don't know. What I am 100% sure of though: In the 26 days Jeff has been in the hospital, I haven't been as comfortable with my life as I was yesterday and today, sitting beside him, holding his hand as he slept and healed. I spent the day choosing to love.

The trip taught me that I will try my hardest to find an opportunity every day to simply love. A tender touch, a kind word, paying for a stranger's coffee at the drive-thru, biting my tongue, offering help, listening...

loving.