by John Maier

Created on: June 11, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Sometimes it takes loss to learn to truly love, and the reflections on the "what-ifs" and the "should haves" are painful teachers. However, if we view our life as a journey-of discovery, of self-realization, of growth, of perfecting our soul-the painful lessons are most likely the ones that stick and that lead to the evolution of spirit that is truly the essence of all the relationships in our lives.

My wife of 35 years died of liver cancer in 2006 after a 17 year battle with the disease in several forms. She was strong, a fighter, not one given to feeling sorry for herself. She continued in her normal daily work routine until she just didn't have the strength or energy to move forward anymore. She was a model to us all of devotion to her duty and to her responsibilities. She was my best friend, my confidante, my most trusted adviser: a rock on whom I relied for more things than I understood at the time.

Most spouses are never completely clear on the extent to which they rely on their partner for many things until the void of their absence stares them in the face. I certainly wasn't. Sure, I was aware of the fact that my wife took care of the banking and did the taxes, tasks I loathed, or at least thought I loathed. Maybe I was just lulled into complacency by having someone else take that burden for me. Or the fact that my laundry got done with regularity, and that I had the "onerous" task of putting my clean clothes away in my drawer without seeing the thinking behind the task, the planning for it, the lugging of the clothes basket downstairs: all simple enough tasks yet part of a fabric of life that I kept at arm's length until I had to face it. Are we ever really clear on how much we take for granted a touch, a look, a smile, a shared laugh, a knowing glance, or how we have woven ourselves into each other's lives so that thoughts are completed, obligations are fulfilled with no verbal communication, needs are addressed out of shared familiarity? It is only when the dialog becomes a monologue that we realize that that shared life, with its many tiny moments of familiar repetition and understanding, is really what love is about.

It is very easy for anyone in the situation that I found myself that drizzly, gray April morning, holding my wife's hand and stroking her face as the life passed out of her, to look back in remorse, wishing that the "what ifs" and the "should haves" could be reversed, wishing that I could have been more aware of those "tiny moments"

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