Fourth of July

To most of you, this is the day for fireworks, hot dogs and celebrations. At my house, it is the anniversary of the worst day of our lives. For the most part, after 15 years we have moved on, but the day will never come without all of us remembering what we lost on this day.

To make a long story short, my oldest son was in a accident that night that, although it didn't kill him, took his life away. It took a lot away from the rest of the family too. It was one of those life changing moments that we all dread. It was caused by heavy partying and carelessness. But we are past with the why part of it because you can only ask that question for so long before you realize that you are never going to get an answer. It was just his fate, our fate and something that we had to deal with as best we could. We all deal with it still on a daily basis, him most of all.

He had a head injury that left him without the use of his right hand and leg. He is wheel chair bound and mentally disabled. He has short term memory loss.

He was in a coma for 8 days, then spent months slowly coming back to us. This was followed by years of rehab and retraining. The results were better in some areas than they had hoped, and not so good in others. He was in a nursing home for several years, now lives in a disabled apt. complex. According to the state, he is able to care for himself. He is not, but that is another story.

I don't have the space here to tell you what this did to my family, my other children and our lives as we knew them. But I can tell you, we survived and moved on. None of us will ever be the same but, we are making the best of a bad situation.

Now, every time I hear a siren, my heart lurches. Somewhere out there, there is a person who maybe having a life changing moment, their family is having a life changing moment, and they will never be the same. Then I pray for them because at that point, they really need the prayers.