Hug the ones you love....

In these days while I wait for the arrival of our baby girl, my thoughts are not of things negative. How could they be? Birth is a beginning, spring for me is a beginning. Alas, for some it is an end and a very unexpected, unbearably painful one at that.
Today I received a long distance call from a friend telling me that her husband died in the wee hours of this morning. Her husband was in a terrible car accident on his way to work last week and the doctor told her and the family that it was a miracle that he wasn't killed right away (thank you Ford for your big a** trucks!),but that it was crucial that he make it through the first 24hrs. He made it to 23hrs, woke briefly from his unconcious state and spoke to my friend for all of five minutes before slipping into a coma. She kept vigil by his side of course willing him to recover, talking to him, cleaning him anything to help him. When I heard from her a couple of days ago, it looked as if he would come out of this coma soon, rehab and live a rather normal life from now on. Well, we all know that doctors are not God. Apparently, God had something else in store. Mind you, my friend and her husband were separated. She wanted nothing more than to have her marriage and husband back again and it seemed as if it would happen. In those 5mins he spoke to her last week, he told her how he loved her. Did he forget they had been apart? Or was he so grateful for a second chance? We'll never know. Now she is a young widowed mom of two beautiful girls under the age of 5. She told me that her sitter had said the older daughter woke in the middle of the night last night crying that there was a large man angel in her room. She was too scared to go back in there. Only when my friend went to pick up her girls did she tell the sitter that their daddy had passed less than half an hour before that! I believe children see angels, I believe that people we love, let us know that they are with us. And this was his way of letting his little girls know he was still with them; they're just too young to understand. She doesn't know how she will tell them that Daddy won't be coming home again. My friend and her husband were not religious people per se and she is struggling with this devastating loss right now and fighting her anger while hoping that there is a Heaven and that her husband is there now. We may not share exactly the same beliefs, but I couldn't help crying for her and with her. She faces many difficult days ahead without the support of family and I'm in another country so I can't be of help in person. I pray for them, I listen to her and I can only hope that is enough. My heart goes out to anyone who loses a spouse, a parent, a child, anyone so close to them. I thought losing my stepmom a few years ago was the worst thing ever, I can't imagine losing my spouse or my child. My brain just can't go there. Regardless of the relationship, if it's not horrible being with them, it's got to be horrible being without them.
So hug your loved ones tight, tell them you love them. Heaven forbid one day it could be one of us making that phone call to a friend.