The Day I Almost Lost My Wife

The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. My wife had what was supposed to be a relatively normal procedure, which would have required a bit of healing and walking around slowly for multiple weeks. However, after being home a few days, my wife had some complications. I received a frantic voice mail while at work. Once I checked the voice mail, I canceled the rest of my meetings for the day and went straight to the hospital. Long story short, she was found to have 2 rather large Pulmonary Embolisms (PE) in her lungs. Several nurses and doctors said she was lucky to be alive. One nurse called her the miracle woman because she survived not just one but two PEs in really bad spots in her lungs.

Needless to say, this has rocked my world and has really made me think. I am so thankful she is still here. I am thankful to hear my kids still call out for their mommy and to hear her answer. I am thankful to see her wonderful face when I come home from work. It is hard to think that I almost lost her.

After something this traumatic happens, it really causes you to begin to rethink your relationships. I thought back over the years of our relationship, the good and the bad times. I started to realize that I have actually nearly lost my wife countless number of times.

Times when she would ask for something and I was too busy doing something ‘important’ to offer a helping hand. Times when she needed a shoulder to cry on and I was too busy holding on to my own grudge. Times when she needed me to shut my mouth and just truly listen to her heart instead of listening for how I was going to respond.

During each of these moments I lost my wife. I began to lose a piece of her heart. How many times have I almost lost the love of my life because of some temporary grudge or frustration over something so petty? As a marriage counselor, I hear stories of husbands and wives that have ‘fallen out of love’. When asked what happened, I often hear that life just got in the way. It makes me wonder how often they chose something other than their relationship, slowly losing their spouse.

As I reflect on my own relationships, I can now see that there are times that my wife was slowly slipping through my grips. These past few weeks have allowed me to wake up, see where I may be losing my wife, and reach out with an ever-tightening grip. God forbid I lose the person that I love so dearly. I don’t know about you, but the reality that I could lose my wife scares me. It is one thing to lose her through some unforeseen health issue, but it is another thing altogether to lose her because I was too busy looking somewhere else. Join me in refusing to let go, refusing to give up, and refusing to lose your spouse!