Have You Told Someone You Loved Them Today?

Tonight I was watching one of my favorite shows, The Ghost Whisperer, and I was literally brought to tears by the end of the episode. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, it is about a woman (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) who is able to communicate with spirits that have not passed on into the afterlife. The premise is that these spirits are lingering here on earth because they have some unfinished business or some unresolved issue here on earth.

Tonight’s episode focused on 250 people who died in a plane crash that refused to “cross over” to the other side because they felt that they had not told everyone that they needed to, when they were alive, that they loved them or how much they appreciated them. Now, I’m not generally a morbid or an overly religious person. Let’s just say that I believe in God and that I have a personal relationship with him and leave it at that. This whole issue touched me extremely, however.

If something were to happen to you today, what regrets would you have about the relationships that you maintained while here on earth? Would you regret not speaking to a friend or family member in God knows how long due to something that happened years ago that you can’t even remember? Would you regret arguing with your spouse before leaving for work and not telling him/her that you loved them? Would you regret having words with your child in the morning over chores that were left undone the night before?

I think it is amazing how much energy we waste on the trivial things in life. We allow this minutia to create so much negativity and isolation from those that we care about and love. There is no person that has not been guilty of this at one point or another in their life. It’s not that we are bad people, it is just that we are human beings and we allow our emotions to dictate our actions more often than not. Sometimes, we are just stressed out from our jobs and from trying to keep up with our hectic schedules and we take it out on the people that are closest to us and the people that we care about the most.

Maybe we would be a little more careful about how we treat those we love if we realized that tomorrow is not guaranteed to us and that there is a possibility that this very moment that we are yelling and arguing might be the last moment…I, for one, do not want to leave behind those kinds of memories or those kinds of feelings but I am but a mere mortal. There is no way that I could be on my best behavior every single moment. This leaves me wondering, how can we guarantee that we let our loved ones know exactly how we feel about them should something happen to us? I’m not sure that anyone has the perfect answer. However, just being aware that every moment is precious should force us to be a little more mindful before we let our tongues loose out of their cages. If that doesn’t work, there is always eternity to regret not having done that.

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