What Really Matters?

 

No matter what stage you are in your career, there will always be another email to answer, another task to complete, another deal to close.  How many of you can relate?  It’s not just business, it’s busy-ness.  As a home-maker, there’s always another meal to cook, always another load of laundry.  It’s endless.

By the end of the day, you may feel you haven’t accomplished enough and are falling behind.  But nothing will ever be enough to remove that feeling.  Can you relate?

One evening, while tired and exhausted from one such day, as I tossed and turned alone in bed (my wife was watching a movie downstairs) I felt an odd tightening of my chest.  For just a split second, I imagined I was having a heart attack.  I thought, if this is it, I haven’t even had a chance to say good-bye to my kids, my wife, tell them how much I love them, to tell them how sorry I was for not spending more time with them and being fully present during the times I was with them.

Death has a way of putting everything into perspective.  On the night my mother passed away, my entire life with her flashed before me.  We had had a very good relationship, but for some reason, many of the times I was less than a good son resurfaced.  Things for which I had never apologized either because I was too young and immature, or because I had forgotten and my lovely Mom never brought it up again.

In her last hours, though I told her how much I loved and honored and appreciated her, I also told her how sorry I was for all those things for which I’d never apologized.  The interesting thing is that death had a way of putting things in perspective for her as well.  She smiled, shook her head and said very sincerely, never to think about those things.  They didn’t matter.  I guess she knew my heart, loved me unconditionally despite all my flaws as a child and young adult.  She had always been that way from the day I was born, until the day she went home to be with The Lord.

Back to my frightening “death” experience.  You know, I wasn’t afraid of dying because I knew where I would be going, and that it was a more real, and perfect place that would make all of this infinitesimal time on Earth seem like a fading dream.  I was more afraid for my family.  Leaving them behind, and not getting a chance to hug them one last time, show them all the love I had in my heart.  I tried to speak the words aloud, as a tear streaked down the side of my face, “Do you know just how much I love you?”

What pained me most was that I didn’t think I did a good enough job showing them.  In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully show them the extent of my love for them.  And that was the worst pain of all.  That they might not know.

The moment passed, and honestly, whether I knew it was really death coming for me or not, it didn’t matter.  What mattered was the lesson I was learning.  It was so real to me, that I actually experienced for those few seconds what it would be like if I were actually about to die suddenly, alone in the dark.

I am glad I had that experience, and it helps me to remember it.  Because from now on, I will live not in fear of dying, but with a renewed effort to show my loved ones, my friends, how much I truly love them.  This lifetime may never be enough.  But I don’t want to look back and think that I didn’t do my very best to love and live for them, or die trying.

Joshua Graham is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, winner of the International Book Award and Forward National Literature Award. His thrillers include DARKROOM, LATENT IMAGE and BEYOND JUSTICE, and TERMINUS. Graham's works have been characterized as thought-provoking page-turners.

Legal Notice: All information on this website and blog are from Mr. Graham's personal experience and insight and should not be viewed in any way, directly or inferred, as qualified professional advice.

All creative writing on this website or Mr. Graham's books: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. (novels, short stories)