I have been reflecting on my good friend Jan today and I thought about the time a few weeks ago when I was feverishly trying to get myself ready to go an extraordinary business trip to a glacier in the Arctic. Jan and his wife, Magda, were visiting NYC and I spent a couple of wonderful days with them showing them around the city and was going to meet up with them again the day before they were to fly home to Antwerp. Because of my trip logistics, I had to delay seeing them until the morning they were leaving. During my three hour drive that morning to NYC, Jan called me but we had bad cell phone reception and it was too difficult to hear what he was saying. "No problem," I kept saying, "I will see you in a few hours."
Unfortunately, our drive took longer than expected and my wife and I missed Jan and Magda by just four minutes! I did not get to say goodbye to my good friends from Belgium. My Mother, who they were saying with said that Jan was not feeling too well and had a strange rash on his arm and leg that morning. She was concerned about his health, but said, "he just wanted to get back home."
The next morning I got a call from Micheal with the tragic news that Jan had died on the plane home. Unexpected, unbelievable, heartbreaking. I was in shock. My first thought was that I missed my last chance to see my beloved friend by minutes. Maybe if we did not stop to use the bathroom, or I was more speedy in my packing, we would have seen him and maybe I would have convinced him to go to the hospital, maybe I could have help save his life?
Michael, in his hospice work, experience talks about how most people had missed the opportunity to "say goodbye" to their loved ones and how they later regretted it. My own experience with Jan has taught me how important it is to make the time to connect with those that I love before, in a matter of minutes, it is too late.
3 comments:
Dear John,
For me you and Jan are so connectred and I often think of you both with joy and of course with sadness. I just want you to know how grateful I am for the few hours we had together with Michael in Amsterdam in last september. I had never met you or Jan before,but the direct feeling of closeness, the wamth, the laughs and the feeling of belongingness meant a lot to me.
It became so evident that some unexpected moments in life can become so important and bring such a strong feeling of meaningfulness.
Much love to you.
Inger
Yes, yes, yes. "If only i had. . . " Our mind tortures us and creates stories to explain the inexplicable. Our mind imagines that we are in control(or should be) much of the time, when in fact all we can control is our response when bad things happen. All I can do is to love Jan, and that continues even though his Mortal self has vanished. In a couple of weeks I will visit his wonderful family and also spend a morning mourning with the nine-person group (that will meet monthly for 9 months) of which he was a member. But yes, we miss the presence of our dear friend. Love to you, John, and to Jan's many friends. Michael
Thank you Inger and Michael for your reflections. They open my heart and make me feel closer to you, to Jan, to Magda and her beautiful family.
Post a Comment