Loss

This has been a rough year, even rougher than last, and I thought 2008 would go down in history as a bad year for me.

2009 has been the year of loss and death. No other way to put it. Too many people have died this year, and I'm not talking about Farrah or Michael. I'm talking about people I know - Lou, Joe, Uncle Ed, Sandy and now Bobby. There were also people on my "social periphery" so to speak - Patrick, Scott & my friend Margie's dad.

I'm not going to lie, Bobby's death has shaken me up, and has made realize what a gift life is, even more so than the deaths preceeding it. I glibly mentioned to a few people after Sandy passed a few weeks ago that I was too young to read the obits regularly, and not only that, but to recognize the names. Now I feel like I'm afraid to read the paper.

My recent problems seem trivial, and I'm glad for that. Life is a gift, and I don't want to squander it.