I am unceasingly amazed by the after-effects of choices that, at the time, seem so inconsequential and irrelevant. That all that I once knew can be altered, removed, banished in a blink of an eye, making all that once was, never be again.
Today I am reminded of how life-shattering, life-altering, heart-breaking a split second choice can be. Today, I am reminded of holding my daughter as she cries inconsolably and without comprehension for what she has witnessed. Today, I am reminded of all that has changed in the last 365 days… the last 783 days. Today, I feel the sadness and shock of 365 days ago and the horror of 783 days ago all over again. Today, the pain is fresh, new, real. And, today, even though I am so different than I was 783 days ago and so much has changed in my life for which I am immensely grateful, I still wish there was something I could have done differently to change the string of events that began 90 minutes from now 783 days ago.
Even though I know it was not my actions that brought all this change upon us and even though it was something that simply had to be gone through, I do wonder how life would be today had all this change not happened. Where would I be? What would I be doing? And, at the same time, I realize that those kinds of questions are futile, they still float in and out of my mind at the oddest of moments.
783 days ago, when that phone rang and I began to learn about all that had happened that morning, I could have never guessed the full impact of those moments. I couldn’t have foreseen this future. And from that, I learned that, even though I am blessed with the Gift of Sight and Knowledge, there are still some things I cannot see – or am not allowed to see – and three hundred, sixty-five days from now… life will be new again in a way that I cannot yet fathom because I have no frame of reference.
The trick is to see the blessings within all that has happened during the last 783 days…
