The Beginning

   It has been three years since the death of my family and nothing has changed.  I have given up and would have gladly died at any moment but unfortunately for me there was a young physical trainer that was hell bent to keep me in the race.  She started every day the same way.  She brought me a cup of coffee from Star Bucks and looked me directly in the eyes and asked me a question.  "Are we going to make any progress today?"

   I gave her the same response every single time.  A dead stare, thinking that she would one day just give up and leave me alone.  This was obviously not to be as she had other plans. 

   "So it is going to be another one of those days, huh?"  Than she would give a grunt and plop down in the chair across from me and that began our Dailey staring routine.

  This has gone on the same way for the past two and a half years when I got assigned a personal trainer.  When I made absolutely no progress she couldn't stop and she decided that she was going to continue even after my insurance had stopped paying her.

   And every single day it was always the same routine.  This week however had been extremely painful.  I had dreamt about the times that I had with my girls and it was more extreme on this week than any other and I had no clue why.

   So today I decided to talk to my trainer.  "Do you ever get out and do something fun for yourself?"

   "No I have a stubborn old fool who won’t get out of his chair and work out his issues."

   "I’m not that old-"

   "Maybe not but you act like one.  I am trying to help you and you shun me off like you do not care.  Well I know that you do care.  There is something out there that you care about and I am going to find it before you do give completely up."

   "Why do you care so much," I asked in Earnest.

   "Someone has to," is her only response.

   Another heavy silence falls over us as she tried to find another subject to speak of.

   "What were they like?"

   This blew my mind because in all of the two and a half years that she has been with me and all of the conversations that we have had this was the first time that she had breached that topic.

   "Wonderful."  The first word that I could think of to describe the two girls in my life that had meant more than life itself.  After that I went on for two hours talking about the conversations that me and my wife had.  The way that we worked so well together and never ran out of stuff to talk about even after ten years of being together.  I talked about how my daughter always brought joy to my eyes as she looked at me and told me that she loved me.  The laughter that she brought as she did the silliest things.  I went on and on it seemed and by the end I had broken into tears and could not stop their shedding.

   "The thought of what they were-"

   "Are."

   I just looked at her confused.

   "They are still alive.  Through you they are living on.  You were left behind to do something.  You obviously do not understand it yet and you are not supposed to but their deaths served a purpose, your life serves something greater.  It's just up to you to believe that enough to let it drive you to do whatever it is that you are supposed to do."

   I didn't want to believe her, yet her logic was sound.  I just couldn't fathom how by losing the things that I hold most dear to myself could in any way help me do something.  It just wasn't something that I was ready to believe.

   What I didn't know was that tonight was going to change the way that I look at everything in my life.

Author's Note

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Reviews

[scripted]

What a heart-felt write... I can't imagine living life without my family... Yet I still find a way to ignore the fact that they could be taken from me at any given moment... I have become immune to the reality of loosing not only who they are but also who I am... This write brought me back to earth again. Thank you for sharing and Keep up with writing on this one, yours truely dani

[Leslie Philibert]

A well observed piece of prose, a text that the reader believes and understands, good one.