I usually get sick by running myself into the ground. Emotionally, physically, mentally – this past week has given me quite the run in every element of my being. The common cold set in, set me back, set me down.

Someone very special in my life brought me chicken soup. The most simple of foods brought the largest magnitude of comfort and ease.

Not even two and a half years can quite prepare you for a death. Especially when the ending of this life on earth happens at 42-years young and makes you instantly yearn for more coffee dates, laughs and relationship stories with your big sister. She took me for my first coffee albeit it being a Starbucks Crappuccino with the coffee hidden behind sugar, ice and vanilla-laden whipped cream. I grew up, and so did my taste-buds. We would now grab hardcore artisan black coffee and stroll the streets of Santa Monica together bonding over farmers markets and the latest LA craze or daze.

Sheri was one of the healthiest people I knew – fellow yoga teacher, kale-loving, skin-glowing, sparkly-eyed, Julia Roberts-smiling Sheri. And then cancer. Until the very end – her eyes sparkled even as her very weak arm reached across my heart to rest on the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. Her hand rested there and I told her how much I’d miss those coffee runs, what a great mother she is and how I’d be the best Aunt to my niece and nephew that I knew how. How do you even know what to say when the conversation could and would be your last? How does one even describe to someone how much you love them, how much you always would and how things would never quite be the same without them?

So in a very unlike-me kind of way. I didn’t try to over-think it. I didn’t bullet-point my talking points, I didn’t rehearse or plan anything. I looked into those big sparkly eyes and mostly enjoyed seeing. I let the words come, I let the kisses be soft, the fingers intertwine and the gaze be gentle, loving and eternal.

Through it all, I have to wonder what experiences like this are meant to teach us. What could this sadness, pain and unfair situation bring to those of us left with such a heavy heart? And then I thought about my stresses at work, about my social life, managing my schedule and all the doing. The analyzing and thinking about my next move, where I should go, where I should be. And then it hits me. I should be here. In a room with a bunch of people who love Sheri, who love each other and even me who they just met for the mere fact that I’m there too. In all this sadness, there was this unmistakable beauty that shone through the tear-curtained eyes of all those who shuffled in and out of Sheri’s home. There was my brother-in-law’s mother who was making chicken noodle soup for anyone who was sitting, standing, leaning, crying, laughing in the vicinity. Someone opened a bottle of wine, another was cutting cheese with one hand and passing it out with the other. There was a uniting of souls and hearts downstairs while a heart was nearing its last beat upstairs. People went up, people came down. Bodies lay down, bodies break down.

It was heart-breaking, heart-lifting. Absolutely devastating and soul-crushingly beautiful. It was painful, heavy, supportive and loving. I want to stay in this place of feeling clarity of what matters. Love matters. Community matters. Family and friends matter. And we all know this, I know we do – but do we truly live it?

I don’t have a reason for why we loose loved ones too soon. It’s beyond me why there is no pattern or cure to cancer. What I do know is what we can control and that’s to be aware. Aware of what’s in front of us and what we have. Look into eyes deeper, listen closer, love fully, move slowly. Treasure, cherish, forgive and love. Always love. At the end of the day and at the end of the road of life, that’s all there is – love. In the form of a hand on a shoulder, through crying eyes or chicken noodle soup.

Love, always love.