Reflections: You can't afford the luxury of giving up

After talking with many widows and widowers, I know they share the same desire: just a little more time with their loved one.

"I lived with him for 50 years," one woman said, "but I would give anything for just one more hour."

Spouses often take one another for granted. You think you're both going to be around forever sometimes. Many have related how their life has changed since the death of their spouse.

They become a single person again -- but it's not the same as when they first started out. Children are often involved and other extra baggage is added.

No one can take the place of a life mate.

People occasionally believe their children will fill the void. Although offspring try to help parents adjust to living without their significant other, the bond is different.

Kids, neighbors and friends all offer and attempt to love and care for someone after their spouse dies, but that emptiness is one that can't be filled.

As everyone knows, however, things happen.

And there's usually little people can do when deaths or even divorces occur. But the question is, how does one continue in life doing what he has to do? How do you find joy and happiness despite what's happened?

Someone asked the woman who wanted only one more hour with her husband how she was dealing with her loss.

"By helping other people," she said. She worked at a girls' home. "You can't afford the luxury of giving up when people depend on you." And then she said, "Helping other people heals."

What awesome statements.

How often do we consider "giving up" to be a luxury? Even though the woman was experiencing her own sorrow within, she directed her efforts outward toward other people.

She felt she was letting them down if she failed to meet their needs. That attitude kept her going.

The same outlook keeps most people going when they feel too exhausted to move.

"My family is depending on me," they tell themselves. People work to make a living, to bring peace and justice to the world, help with a meaningful charity or to fulfill a personal desire. They subconsciously know they can't enjoy that luxury of giving up.

It may be that you must be at school to teach your class. Children and parents are depending on you.

Even if you can't physically perform, you can always love and encourage others. We all fulfill a need somewhere -- for someone.

So you see, we can't give up, even when what means the most to us is taken away. God assures us that "He will be with us always, even to the end of time." (Matthew 28:20) Even when bad things happen, we can't withdraw for too long. Other people need us.

Listening to the woman's statement about wanting only one more hour with her husband allowed me the opportunity to recall those closest to me.

I vowed to make each day special by living every day as if it were my last and appreciating others as if it were their last.

Ellen Shuck holds degrees in psychology, religious education and spiritual direction and provides spiritual direction to people at her office.