Growing up, I idolized my older brother Paul. Between his army years, he was the fearless chef, whipping up magic at a fancy seafood restaurant while I fumbled plates as an underage waitress serving alcohol (those were the days when labor laws weren’t always scrutinized!).

My vivid memories not only include him teaching me the restaurant trade, but the laughter of summer afternoons spent on the water fishing with the daredevil captain in his motorboat, and his joyous yell – “Look at me, I look like a lobster!” – as he emerged back on the boat after a spontaneous dip in Long Island Sound, his skin flushed from the sun.

Years flew by. One year, we cleared out some of our excess in our parents’ house for a weekend garage sale before I left for college. Our family had decided that all proceeds would go towards my college fund. It was while hammering a garage sale sign onto a utility pole that my irritation with Brother Paul, chain-smoking beside me, reached a boiling point.

“You can’t do anything without lighting a cigarette, can you?” I lashed out, a cigarette smoker myself at the time, but come on, you could take a breath in between!

Brother Paul, ever the chain smoker, lit another cigarette in reply to my remark. (Little did I know this would be one of his last packs and he would quit soon enough, cold turkey.) The point is that this dynamic happened to be part of a familiar pattern. When something about him rubbed me the wrong way, I’d lash out. The cycle would then repeat, with the roles occasionally reversed. Repeat.

In my youthful naivety and fierce independence, I took family for granted, assuming it was an unchanging fixture in the ever-shifting world. We think we have endless time in the world to say sorry, to mend fences. But life offers no such guarantees. That mindset, needless to say, wasn’t a recipe for a strong relationship with Brother Paul. My early twenties were a whirlwind, and while I eventually made significant amends to him and his wife, Diane, the harsh words exchanged left lingering scars.  Let’s face it, neither of us were perfect back then.

Certainly through the years, we took each other for granted, assuming “lobster skin” resilience. We forgot about the fragility woven beneath the shell. This fragility, often ignored by our “get-up-and-go” culture.

This truth hit home recently when Brother Paul faced some health challenges. While the details are private, it was a wake-up call that I actually experienced in slumber. Recently, I had a dream where I tried to comfort him with empty promises of “everything will be alright.” Yet, a chilling voice whispered the truth: “No, it won’t.”

I brushed off the dream, hoping it wasn’t a portent of something terrible. However, it did serve as a stark reminder of life’s impermanence. The truth is, even for the most devout and faith-filled, the finality of death can be a difficult pill to swallow. We crave a pause button, a chance to hold onto forever. But the reality is, life is finite.

At the moment, everything has simmered down. However, Brother Paul’s recent health struggles unleashed a wave of guilt and regret for some of our past words and actions. We also found ourselves acutely missing my son Marshall. His absence magnified the emptiness in our already dwindling family circle. Yet, amidst the pain and turmoil, the experience also ignited a spark of hope. Hope that we would have more time to rebuild a stronger bond, filled with shared laughter that once turned us both lobster-red.

So, here’s my two cents’ worth after being zapped by this most recent wake-up call. Take a deep breath, reach out to those you love, and truly listen where judgment has no place. There are stories waiting to be told, adventures waiting to be had, and sun-kissed swims yet to be taken.

Don’t wait.  Embrace the present moment.  Yell, “Now is all we have!” Dive into the vast ocean of life now, because even its seemingly endless depths have their limits.