Many years ago,
an old friend of mine—
someone I hadn’t spoken to in decades—
learned, one night,
that both of his parents had been in a severe head-on car accident.
His mother…
was in critical condition.
His father…
died instantly.
In a single, fatal moment,
his life changed forever.
No warning.
No consent.
He wrote to me afterward—
because he always wrote when life became unbearable—
that the strangest part wasn’t the accident itself.
It was how the world didn’t stop.
Not for a second.
Time didn’t pause.
People went on, oblivious.
That dislocation stayed with him.
And it would prepare him for another blow.
The eventual passing of his mother.
Making him, in the end, a fellow orphan.
I’ve learned something hard,
something unavoidable:
No matter what life throws at you,
no matter how catastrophic,
you have to get up.
Dust yourself off.
Keep going.
Tomorrow will come.
Then a week.
A month.
A year.
For those left behind,
the alarm rings.
Bills must be paid.
People go to work.
To the grocery store.
To the mundane, ordinary tasks.
And the world keeps spinning.
Night turns to day.
Time marches on.
There’s a saying
that time can heal what nothing else can.
I hope that’s true.
For some.
For me…
time hasn’t healed.
It has, at times, stood completely still.
Until another death.
And then another.
Now, in the summer of 2025…
Four notable deaths.
Since my mom passed.
All sudden.
All jarring.
None I saw coming.
I know some people
can find comfort in perspective.
In support.
They can accept that death is part of life.
I…
would not know much about that.
What I do know is this:
Getting stuck.
In a place—good or bad.
And trying to find your way out.
That is my everyday now.
No matter how deeply you are affected…
You cannot expect others to feel the same.
There are only a few people in life
who will clap when you win…
and cry when you fall.
When they’re gone…
When you are truly alone…
That is when the real work begins.
You either sink under the weight of it…
Or climb out.
Just as the ones who are gone
would have hoped you would.
The summer of 2025…
it has been the hardest time of my life.
I believe in God.
I have faith that there is some purpose behind all of this…
A purpose I am not meant to fully understand.
I know I am not facing it entirely alone.
God walks beside me.
With every step I manage to take.
And yet…
I cannot deny
that I spend too much time thinking about my own mortality.
Death.
Life.
All of it weighing on me
in ways it never used to.
Since I switched from television to YouTube…
Google shows me stories of “notable people” who have died.
I am struck by the ages,
the causes,
the uncanny parallels to my own life.
It forces me to reconsider plans I once thought I had…
Places I thought I might go.
It is sobering to confront my health.
My age.
My limitations.
Things I never had to consider before.
The echoes in my mind…
they come from a time when all I wanted was to be left alone.
To be.
To go.
To do as I pleased.
And now…
I wonder aloud:
Is this what “be careful what you wish for” really means?
Perhaps it is.
