No, this isn’t a weight loss article. It’s about the life steps forward and backward that sometimes drag, sometimes push and sometimes chase us into our futures. Can you imagine a life that is confined only to the happy ending on the last page of a fairy tale? How would we grow? How would we appreciate anything and anyone we have in our lives? Losing is an essential step for gaining anything in life.

No where is that as true as in our relationships with the people in our lives. It should be easy to let friends and family know you care about them. And yet we so rarely do that. Perhaps we assume that they already know. Or maybe you were raised in a family where overt expressions of feelings weren’t encouraged. Whatever the reason, get over it! It’s too important to value what and who you have in your life, and to let them know how you feel. Because in a flash, everything can change and you may never have the opportunity again. If you’ve lost a loved one, you know just how penetrating that pain can be. Double the pain if you had a recent argument with the loved one, or you’d been meaning to do something special for that person and kept letting life get in the way of doing it. The regrets reverberate. Loss, while never easy, is more bearable when you don’t have many “if only I’d” thoughts.

I have a friend who has ALS. Each time I see him, he has lost more functioning. Every day, every minute, he confronts the reality of what is coming for him. There is nothing I can do. Except be his friend. I’ll be relieved for him when his nightmare is over, but there will be a new void in my life and even moreso in the lives of his loving family.

In future blogs, which I aim to post at least weekly, I’ll be touching more on relationships and loss and family and using all of your life experiences to grow yourself.

In the meantime, though, love the one(s) you’re with!