Here One Day, Gone the Next

I sat on my couch last Sunday, desperately trying to figure out how to save all of the photos off my dying cell phone before I traded it in on a new one.  As I saved the photos, I came across Daughter's prom photos from her senior year of high school: May 23, 2010.  Then, I saw the photos from Daughter's and my big birthday weekend (her 18th and my 50th):  October 20, 2010.  Featured prominently in both sets of photos was Office T, looking healthy and happy.....and alive.  To look at us all then, no one would ever have known that less than two years later, Office T would be dead. Oh, and also in the birthday photos was Dad; who'd have thought he'd outlive Office T by over a year.  Certainly not me.  Office T had 60 more years to go, by my reckoning, and Dad, maybe 10 if we were lucky.  Then one day, they just weren't there.

I woke up this morning to the news of 50 people dying in a nightclub shooting, with another 50 wounded.  Last month, a man shot his estranged wife outside Son's school and then killed two random people the next day.  They were there, and then they weren't.  At the end of the day, does the reason really matter?  All of those people, who others loved and cared about, are dead.  THeir loved ones will never be able to tell them they love them, will never be able to make amends for wrongs they inflicted, will never be able to tell them they forgive them for the wrongs they suffered.  Every day, then week, then month, then birthday and holiday will go by and their loved ones will miss them and cry for what they've lost.  Yes, they will also remember the good times, the love and special moments they shared, but humans being humans, the anger, pain and the regret they feel first and longest.

Which is probably why some folks fight so hard here in the Trenches.  Divorce is the death of a marriage.  It is the death of a family structure.  It hits people hard.  They feel pain and regret.  The problem is that their spouse is still there, serving as a constant living reminder of what they have lost. Some people overcome the pain and anger of the loss and can remember the good times and love.  Others never do.  Let's turn this around for a minute.  If you were Office T, Dad, the people in the Orlando nightclub or the folks shot by that woman's estranged husband, would you want your last day or moment on earth to be consumed by anger and pain?  Would you rather give others the benefit of the doubt, let go of your anger and count your blessings?  I know which choice I make (sometimes with difficulty, but I make it every day), here in the Trenches.