Once again, it seems like the lives of those around me are going through their own private hells as I breeze through by some lucky stroke of chance (or some chancy stroke of luck).  Is it mere coincidence or the results of choices we make or some combination of these things that lead to horrible or at the very least undesirable outcomes we face at various times in our lives. 

First my friend and neighbor, N- - - -, chose to file for divorce from her husband of 10 years because she has fallen out of love for him and has decided that maybe she never truly loved him at all, or at least not for a really long time.  It has gotten spiteful, as divorce will, and both have shown their malevolent sides.  And she is normally such a kind and peaceful person, and she is a good friend and I listen to her vent.  She will get through this.

My friend, Linda, whose mom died a week short of a year ago (see blog for September 1, 2006), is once again facing the death of a loved one. Her husband, Dave, was out riding a motorcycle on the 12^th, didn’t see a stop sign and was hit in a country road intersection.  I suppose Linda should be grateful that she had a migraine that day and didn’t go with him, but right now, Dave lay in a coma, with his left temporal lobe and skull removed.  Linda will be pulling the plug today or tomorrow.  It’s gonna take a long time, as she is feeling she can’t live without Dave, but she too will get through this.

Three days ago, I hugged my grandson’s friend T----.  She’s a sweet little girl of 10, always smiling.  My daughter called yesterday to say that T---- had been molested by a neighbor who lives 6 doors down in their not-so-great neighborhood.  The police were at the T---‘s house at that moment.    Today I learned that the cops had confronted the guy who became suicidal saying he’d rather die than go to jail, and then took a few steps toward the door.  The cops missed their mark by a foot or so when they shot him in the leg and arrested him.  T--- will probably never fully get over this.  Children rarely do.

As a sympathetic person, I grieve for my friends and the horrors they are facing and the innocence they have lost, the wounds that must now heal.  At times of dreadful events, their minds are probably turning to the “what ifs?” They are probably wondering what they could have done differently to make the outcome any way other than the way it all unfolded.  In the end, they all will turn around and put their lives, different now, back together