Burning Sadness

It’s 5:30am and I’m waiting for my Supershuttle to the airport, but quickly wanted to record a feeling I had last night that shook me to the core.
My alarm was set to go off at 4am, but for whatever reason I woke up at 3:50 instead. I looked over at my wife and something about the light coming in from our window gave her face a pale, blueish color. A moment later I realized I couldn’t hear her breathing. I went into panic mode and quickly shook her body while calling her name. In what felt like an hour, but was probably only a half-second, she didn’t respond. Then she took a deep breath in and said my name and asked me what was wrong. She was totally fine.
My heart was beating so fast. My mind was racing. I felt a sense of sadness I’d never felt before. The feeling was so deep it felt like it was burning my soul. I was in pure panic mode for a few moments and 90 minutes later, I still can’t shake the feeling out of me.
4:00 PM UPDATE…
I’m now in Erie, PA gearing up for a keytalk to kickoff a leadership conference for the Penn State – Erie student leaders. I just got an email letting me know a really close friend’s wife just passed away unexpectedly and she was 6 1/2 months pregnant. My brother knew the wife really well (they went to grad school together). I became close friends with the husband over the past four years. Just a week ago we were having drinks together updating each other on the exciting things happening in our lives. Everything was great a week ago. Now his life is totally different and I suspect he is feeling, and will feel for a long while, the same deep burn of sadness I felt for only a few brief seconds this morning. My soul burns for him right now.
Yesterday I wrote about the idea of impermanence of life and it’s days like today that make me stop, take a deep breath in, and not take one moment of life for granted.

















tomkrieglstein
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