just like that

I recently saw something on Facebook that shook me up.  One of my friends is a girl who I went to highschool with.  We haven't talked since I graduated.  We seldom talked while in school. I went to one of those really small schools where you know everyone and everyone knows you and she was in the class behind me, so it was impossible to not know each other somewhat.  At some point after school we both got married.  I had three kids she had one. 

I rejoiced via Facebook with her when her Marine came home safely from a long deployment to Afghanistan.  I sometimes see her updates about her son.  She has made a happy life for herself and her family. I've been happy for her. And then it happened.  Her hubby was killed in an accident and now she is a widow.  A thirty something widow with a young son to care for.  Just like that her world is forever changed. 

He wasn't away at war.  He had come home.  They were enjoying life together.  He didn't die at the time she was braced for the call, when she was hoping against the call but prepared all the same.  He died after she had let her guard down.  He's home.  He is out of the line of fire.  He is out of the area where one would not be surprised (though of course the emotions would be just as horrible) if he died.  He was on his motorcycle and a car hit him.  Just like that he's gone.

I'm struck by the frailty of life.  He was young.  He had an amazing life and a lot to look forward to.  She thought he was coming home.  She wasn't prepared at all for the call saying he would never come home.  And it could have been any one of us.  It could be my hubby on his way to work in the middle of the night.  It could be me.  It could be anyone.

This time it was them.  She is left to pick up the shattered pieces of her life. She presses on to raise their son without the help of her best friend.  I nearly cried this afternoon when my hubby turned on an episode of Scrubs.  Turk and JD are sitting with a man while he dies and JD says something along the lines of all you can really hope for (in dying)  is that your last thought is a good one.  I hope D's last thought was a good one. 

It is such a shocking reminder to me that I am not promised tomorrow.  If I died tonight, would my kids last memory of me be hugging them or yelling at them?  Would my husband know how much I love him?  Would those you love know how much you love them if you didn't have tomorrow to tell them?