On the 24th of January, I wrote a post called “A Prayer for Anna”. My friend from high school lost her husband on the 22nd to a sudden heart attack. I knew, as many of you do, what she went through. That feeling of losing the life you had, the life you had planned, your best friend and your life partner. I know what her children went through as they tried to process their loss and break the news to their children that their Papa wasn’t coming home. That was what she dreaded the most…telling her five grandchildren.

Wednesday evening, I went out to dinner with my niece at The Boar’s Head, a British Pub and Restaurant. Seriously, the Low Country Shrimp and Grits were fabulous! We had a wonderful meal and walked up and down the waterfront for a while. It was so nice to visit with her. She is a Major in the Army Reserves and going back to school to get yet another degree. I’m very proud of her. My phone was on fire towards the end of the evening but I didn’t look at it till I got back to the B&B.

When I got settled in my room, I looked at my phone and got sucker punched in the gut. Our Anna…new widow, soon-to-be-retired nurse, beloved mother, grandmother, and friend…was dead. Seventeen days after her beloved died, Anna was gone.

My friend had a family history of heart disease and after her husband died so suddenly (as well as her younger brother dying and another brother having two heart attacks), she got a full workup. Just this past Monday, Anna had a cardiac cath and everything was fine. Wednesday, she was feeling good physically, and…as we know…she needed to get out and get some fresh air and sunshine, so she went out to walk the dog. We can all imagine what was running through her mind so new into this journey. Sometime into her walk, Anna had a heart attack and died. I have a friend who is a cardiac nurse and she suggested Anna may have had what is referred to as “Broken Heart Syndrome”. There isn’t a blockage, but the heart muscle is weakened from the stress of the loss and she likely suffered an arrhythmia that caused her to have a heart attack. I don’t know, but I assume she was walking alone and was found down. Whatever the details, the point remains…her two daughters lost both parents, unexpectedly, in the matter of seventeen days. That is horrifying.

While this is most certainly not about me, this kind of loss can make grief rear its ugly head. Things have been going really well for me the last few months. And…as grief is wont to do…just when you feel you may have recovered, your journey catches up with you to remind you there will always be work to do. I was broken-hearted when I got this news. I couldn’t even begin to sleep and stayed up much of the night commiserating with my classmates online. We are all in shock and our hearts are with the girls and their children.

I am so glad I had the opportunity to see Anna at our 45th high school reunion in August. Like I said in my post on the 24th, she and I didn’t really know each other well in high school. But, we were FB friends and we were all excited that Anna was coming to the reunion. We visited and laughed and promised to get together once she retired. And, now she’s gone. I’m still having trouble processing that. What it drives home is this…life is so tenuous. It is a thread…a hair’s breadth…a whisper…a heartbeat between “here” and “not here”. The mystery of life awes me and scares me yet comforts me in that I know there is life after this. An eternal life of living in the presence of a loving and forgiving Father. I know Anna has been reunited with her Prince Charming of just shy of 42 years. She didn’t have time to learn about the “new normal”. Now, it’s her children and grandchildren who will need to create that for themselves. And, my heart is most definitely with them. ?

“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:6-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬