No knitting but some excellent reading

DANG IT! My carpal tunnel is acting up and although I REALLY, REALLY want and need to knit, I can't. . . it really, really hurts right now. :-O

Sigh.

BUT, have no fear, I have found something to occupy my time. . . .has anyone else read this. Man, it's good. Ok, Ok, so I am not lil' miss politics and I do not know anyone who suffered a personal loss on 9/11. . . BUT. . . .

I do know what it is like to have friends who are your lifeline during hard times. I do know that it is very important to tell the people who matter to you that, well, that they matter to you.

This book? FAB! Yes, it's the story of 4 Sept. 11 widows and yes, they do talk about losing their husbands but it is NOT a book about Sept. 11th. It's a love story about 4 women who form a bond that is beyond a "normal" friendship. It is about how they come to understand that life is meant to be shared with people who you love: romantic love, familial love, parent/child love, and just as important, friendship love.

I've always been one to tell people when I love them. Yep, PEOPLE. Not just boys, not just men, not just my family, PEOPLE. I love people all around me in my life. . . and I tell them. I tell them whenever I feel it and whenever I am saying goodbye. I don't want to ever have something happen and have them not know that I loved them. It's important to me. I've seen so many people die with the regret of unspoken words or feelings. I don't want that for me or for those around me. So, if I love you, I'm gonna tell you. Live with it.

A few years ago I met the wife of one of DHs (back then) coworkers - (did that make sense?). Anywho, we met at a baseball game when DS and I got to go to the firm's suite at The Jake. We hit it off right away. Our lives where such parallels of each others. We both grew up in Florida. We both married our college sweethearts. We both wanted lots of kids. We both had just one son. (We both had very similar feelings about that but that's a different story). We both supported our families in New Orleans while our husbands both attended Tulane Law School (different class years - we were a year a head of them). We both are under appreciated (and under paid) professionals - teacher and nurse. (Again, different story). You get the picture, right?

I remember the first time I told her that I loved her as we were hanging up from a phone call. She was taken aback and just said "uh, Thanks". I persisted with subsequent conversations and meetings to tell her that I loved her when saying goodbye b/c I had come to love her. She mattered to me. I wanted her to know it.

I also remember her and I having a conversation where she told me how much me telling her that I loved her meant to her. She started looking at her life different and realizing that she, like many, just assumed that the people who mattered to her just knew that they mattered to her. Of course they know, right? Uh, not necessarily and even if they do, who doesn't like to hear that they matter, that they are loved? She thanked me for teaching her to tell people how she feels. She told me how she had started to say I love you more and how much closer it drew her to those that mattered. She told me that it changed her to hear that she was loved not just by those who were supposed to love her, but by other who chose to love her. So now, each time we write each other or talk, we say "LYLAS" (we pronounce it 'lilas') - love you like a sister.

So, this book, it's a good book. It's written by each of the 4 widows plus another author. Pick it up if you can. It's really a good read.

Oh, and by the way,

when was the last time you told your friends that you loved them???