The final word(s)

April had amazing insight and I learned countless things about life from her. She taught me to do one thing that really paid off, and I want to share it with you. April always believed it was very important to end all of our encounters with "I love you." Any time we parted or ended a phone conversation, we always said "I love you." Just in case something happened to one of us, we would go out on those words. Even when we were mad or disagreeing about something, we still had to say "I love you." That was the rule--no exceptions. And I had to agree with her, it was a good idea. I spoke to April on the phone about 2-3 hours before she passed away. We had a nice chat and ended it the usual way--"I love you." We had no idea it would be our final conversation. But since we followed the rule, the last words we ever said to each other were "I love you." Thanks, April, for making that rule.