I wait for that moment, the moment that changes everything. The thing that defines a before and an after.
I wondered for a long time where it came from, this paranoia and gloomy expectation. Then I recalled a sunny day on Wimbledon Common. A time when someone I loved collapsed, out of the blue, and was rushed to hospital. So started 24 hours of wondering, was this how it was going to end, how the sum of my life with this person would be written? In this hospital, under these bright lights?
Thankfully it was a blip. My loved one recovered and life went on.
But ever since then I expect the speeding car to come screaming round the corner. A moment of irreversible and sudden change. A loss of innocence, being thrust from a safe world, a cocoon, into a place with no walls, ceiling or doors. Nothing looking quite the same again.
Will it come for me, that speeding car? Or will I be one of the lucky ones?
It came for someone I know just recently, and I can’t help but wonder what that moment was like. That moment when it all changed forever.
Marketing to Milk 
I know that feeling. I have an overwhelming fear of my loved ones dying, and when I was pregnant I would suddenly find myself crying for no reason other than I wanted them to know my son. It’s a terrible thing, but we must treasure every moment possibly just incase.
yes i’ve been down that “what if” route and it is one big black hole.
It comes for all of us, eventually. Mine was May 22nd 2007, but I know there’ll be more, I love too many people for there not to be. Everyone’s is different and the worst thing that’s ever happened to you is just that, the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. It helps to think about the best things that have happened to you, the happiest things. Life does go on.
I’m not sure what i fear does happen to everyone. It’s not the natural passing of a loved one i fear – that is difficult, but it’s part of life. What i fear is the unnatural, the sudden. Something beyond comprehension, that takes away all your belief that things happen for a reason, or that everything will be alright. God that’s depressing isn’t it!
I know what you mean H. Lori’s tragedy hit homw with me too. Even if that moment doesn’t come, ‘near misses’stay with you. Always at the back of your mind.
Exactly x
Yes, tragedy and sadness are all around us. I’ve been there as have many of us. The only way I can stay sane is by focusing on the life and living all around us as well. I don’t want to reach that day (whether mine or someone near me) and realise I wasted time by worrying about it. I lived for many many years in the worry zone.
Im really enjoying your writing by the way.
Thanks very much! x
If I expect that moment to come, it comes too quickly, before I am ready. Subsequently that the shock and pain is too overwhelming, but strangely I am resigned to it.
If I have no presumption that that kind of moment will ever happen to me, would it push that kind of moment out of my sphere?
I ponder this too late. But I am practicing the latter.
I had a moment that defined a before and after. It wasn’t a death but it was certainly the death of a lot of things that I had hoped for someone. In the moment, you don’t know, you don’t feel it. You’re too busy wondering if this is one of those moments or if you’ll be lucky and it will turn out ok.
Well. That’s how it was for me, anyway.
Yes that makes sense. It’s the loss of faith. The idea that there is some order in things, an ultimate purpose, a “fairness” about the way things are. When something happens you can’t make sense of, that doesn’t fit your existing knowledge of the world, it must be shattering to the core.
It happened to my husband with me when I had my 1st child. I nearly died. Seeing him with PTSD & then more recently after our 3rd child & it being a bit hairy in recovery I just can’t imagine the heartache & devestation of losing a loved one.
My 2 year old son was hit by a car last October & rarely a day passes where I don’t think what if I am just so glad he’s here.
Life is cruel at times. I don’t know Lori but it’s desperately sad about her husband. She sounds amazingly strong.
The moment my brother told me he was dying was that moment.
It was like you imagine, a flash and everything forever was never the same again.
My heart goes out to your friend and to everyone who experiences loss of a loved one. Grief is literally like your heart being ripped out and having to learn how to live without it.
I love your writing Milk. Always makes me want to comment.
xx
Oh M, you have been there.
x
It hurts, and it goes on hurting, long after you are supposed to put it behind you and move on. I’m thinking of you. With love.
Gosh. What a thought-provoking post and some very moving comments. I think we all live in fear of That Moment, but know it will come one day in some form.
Such an interesting question. I know what you’re talking about and funnily enough, it’s a big part of the book I have written.
I used to think like you. I used to want to rush to be married because I feared something happening to my then ‘boyfriend’ because if it did, I would only ever be able to refer to him as a ‘boyfriend’ even though I knew he was so much more to me. Funny, the things your mind thinks when you give it free rein. And then the day came. Feb 12th, 2004. After my daughter died – our one and only child to that date – I knew that even if any more of my loved ones died, heck even if my now husband died….. it couldn’t possibly be any more painful, any worse. I now have another daughter, a 4yo, and if I’m completely honest, I still don’t think it would be *quite* as acutely unbearable. Only because the seal has been broken, the illusion already shattered. That, and, I know I would still be alive.
Incredibly powerful post.
Oh yeah. Something that has been playing on my mind, of course- no one picks when their life will end, or how. When the sunchine will go away xoxoxoxox