Now, My Second Mother Is Gone, Too

         In an entry in my portfolio created in June, 2009 titled "I Miss You Dad", I stated that I'd received a card from Susie, my late wife Linda's older sister, tenderly telling me that their father, George Hart, had passed away peacefully earlier that month.

         This past summer (2014), on a comfortably warm weekend afternoon, a woman who'd been one of their neighbors when they lived here through those earlier years, just one street in front of where I'm living now, stopped by as I was getting in my car, and, after making sure she had found the right person based on her memories from that time, warmly told me that Linda's mother, Virginia, had just passed away.

         I still think of them often, especially since I'm still working on the book I've written about those years of my life, when Linda was my wife, and her parents were, for all intents and purposes my parents as well. I was always much closer to her parents than to my own. Linda, George, Ginny, and Linda's younger sister, Marcia, were the ones that taught a young 17-year-old boy what real love was about, how caring for and about others can be so very rewarding, and so much more about the things that are truly important in life. I've carried those life lessons with me, and hopefully I've put some of them to good use in how I've treated others I've encountered in my life since that time.

         Only two members of that original family are still alive, to my knowledge, Linda's older sister Susie, and her younger sister Marcia. Most of the time in my day-to-day life I don't feel my age, or have many conscious thoughts about the passage of time. But once in a while something will happen that reminds me that time waits for none of us, that we have to make the most of each day, and tell those we love how we feel about them while we can. Because we never know what will happen 2 minutes from now, much less after that. I've always been thankful for the fact that I had told each of them, Linda, George, Ginny and Marcia as well, how much I loved them the last time I spoke to them (Susie was married and living elsewhere since before Linda and I met; we only touched base at a number of holiday gatherings over those years). Because now I have the peace of mind that they all knew how I felt when the end came for each of them (and hopefully left Marcia with warm thoughts). Making the time to tell those we care about that we DO care is more important than we think. That very thought was the reason for another item in my portfolio, titled "Your Last Chance". That was written at the time in my life when I first realized how truly important that simple act of telling them is, and the wonderful peace of mind that having done that can bring.

         And I can just imagine the wonderful conversations Linda and her parents are sharing right now. They all deserve the wonderful happiness that the family's strong faith in God has now brought to them. And I thank Him for welcoming them all Home so they can be together once again.