First Lesson: Enough

The word I chose for the year is Enough.

Enough has a lot of meanings:

Do I have enough?

Am I enough?

Do I have enough time?

The answers to those questions are Yes, Yes and No. There is never enough time for the life that you want.

The long holiday weekend gave me a hard kick as a reminder of the different meanings of the word enough.

A week ago, my husband and I visited with my brother who was in the hospital, mostly due to complications from a long-term illness. He was in good spirits and nearly his usual self. He was, however, very blunt.

He wanted to let us know that he wasn’t going to be with us for much longer.

This is not a truth I wanted to face though I understand that all life comes to an end.

We visited for a little while before heading out for our other plans. My intention was to visit him on the weekend.

He got out of the hospital the next day and seemed to be feeling better. I guess he was for a couple of days at least.

On New Year’s Eve, we got a call around 9:00 that he was being taken to the hospital and that it didn’t look good.

Not news I wanted to hear.

My husband drove and, as usual, faster than he was supposed to but we didn’t make it. The hospital staff rushed us back to the room where what family was with him, stood around crying. My brother was gone.

I could barely believe it. He was gone most likely when we got the phone call. It didn’t matter how fast we got there.

I’ve been lucky in my life and have lost few people. This one is going to be hard though not completely unexpected. As I wrote his obituary tonight, I realize just how lucky I am that my family has experienced few losses like this.

In looking for the meaning and messages this event has presented in my life, I am thinking about the word I’ve chosen for the year and how the lessons have begun very early.

I think one of the lessons for me is that time is something that is fleeting, and there will never be enough. I’m reminded that tomorrow isn’t promised to us. I never expected to spend New Year’s Eve in a hospital emergency room, though I did. We never know what the next moment will bring.

All we have is now.

Use it wisely.