Don't Withhold Your Voice

Today is just one of those days. It began with sunny blue skies and has now become cloudy as a new storm approaches the shores of Southern California. I arrived home this afternoon to greet the woman who has been helping me keep our home in tip top shape for nearly 10 years. She speaks broken English, I speak broken Spanish, but we have always found a way to communicate. Today, as tears rolled down her face and her chest heaved with deep sighs, she told me of her husband's death a week and a half ago.

I fixed her some tea and as we sat together in the pool of her broken heart, she described the week she had been through. I stopped occasionally to clarify in my Spanish dictionary, but I could hear her with my heart. I held her as she cried again, and could feel the emptiness and anxiety she was feeling, facing the world without her esposo. At times she spoke in English, bits and pieces, and other times, she spoke in a flow of Spanish that kept me riveted and I somehow found the way to understand the nature of what she was saying. She spoke from her heart.

I think of all the things I would have said to my loved ones who have passed beyond this life. I still talk to them often; but so much of what I would have said to them, or might have said to them, is stored in the hollow cans of my "wish I had closet." Sometimes, some of those thoughts just leak out into my present moment, and I send them on angels wings to my beloved someone who I hope hears me. Don't wait to praise, don't wait to utter those challenging words,  I am sorry for how I participated in our misunderstanding." Don't wait to use your voice to offer love and compassion to those you love. They will not be here forever; none of us will.