THOUGHTS: Birthdays and the Opposite Thereof

Tomorrow is my brother's nineteenth birthday. He's a freshman at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. That's where attempted to go to school once. He's having better luck with it than I am, which isn't saying much I suppose. He plays football and is held accountable by it, whereas I just had to go, and I didn't go to class as often as I should. But I'm digressing...

I remember the day in fourth grade when my dad picked my sister and me up from school and told us we had a brother. I was stoked because, as I remember it, my sister wanted a girl so badly, and I wanted a brother. I won! I had all of these flashes in my head about how cool it was going to be to have a little brother. Now, almost two decades later, I'm just as enthusiastic about him in my life, even if my ideas of what we do together have changed drastically.

Almost six years ago, my son was born. Similarly, I had flashes of what we would be doing together, of all the things I would teach him, how we would grow together, me as a man, he into a man.

I had no idea that almost five months later, he'd be gone. Just like that. Gone.

My aunt, who recently lost her own son, had posted online today that "time heals all wounds", that whoever said that was full of shit.  I'm inclined to agree. Wounds may heal, but we carry the scars for life. They give us character, remind us of the duality of life.

I think of my brother, my first son, and my second son, the boy sleeping on the couch right now. I think of how much happiness and sorrow these people have brought into my life, how much of a rollercoaster this hs all been for me, albiet a rollercoaster that's taken years to run its course. Then I realize that it's not a rollercoaster at all. It's simply life. It's a series of events, some to be celebrated, some to be mourned, but all to be remembered an revered.

Time does not heal all wounds. However, we have it in us to look at those scars that define us, to acknowledge them as part of us, just like the good people in our lives are part of us.

Life is only beautiful when you see it for what it truly is: scarred, precious, happy... forgiven. Have the courage to see yours for what it really is.