When I was eleven years old my mother died from cancer. She had first contracted it some five years earlier and, in those days, the treatments were not nearly as effective as they are today. She lived with the knowledge that she was dying for a long time but rarely seemed to give in to it except on a few occasions. Still, I knew. And I prayed to take some of her sickness away but she died anyway.

Why she had to die so young I could not understand. I did not know then and I still do not know to this day.

We left my childhood neighborhood when I was thirteen and moved in with my grandmother. My life had gone off in a different direction than it would have if my mother had lived and if our neighborhood had not declined and forced us into moving. What it would have been otherwise or if either or both had not happened I could not know and never will.

I almost attended the University of Notre Dame but could not manage it financially. I went instead somewhere else to pursue a degree in accounting. I changed my major to engineering and wound up taking a job in the far south almost completely by the phantom hand of serendipity. It was thusly so.

Had I wound up in accounting or working somewhere else my life would have doubtless been different and it wound up moving down a path that was determined in such brief moments defined by such time-driven decisions. Do it differently? Why? Why not?

That too, I will never know.

So on life went and I along with it. To where I entered into and faded or fell out of several romantic relationships only to find myself older and convinced I would never marry and never have a family, both things that I knew I wanted but did not know how to go about getting. Mostly my fault but chance and fortune still played their hands. And what would have been my life had I married one of those past flames is anyone’s guess. I have no guess. I can only imagine but can never really know.

Again, mainly by chance, I found myself with my love and the woman I would marry and it all seemed to finally make sense as I realized it was not too late to have the life I had always wanted when I got older. And I had thought myself too old and past the point of no return but luck and fortune, and maybe the Lord’s blessing, brought me once again full into the always-flowing stream that is this life.

How and when and why… What if, and how so and why not…

Dunno, dunno, dunno. Never did and never will.

My father passed away from cancer a month before I was married. He died the night I landed at the airport. I had talked to him on the phone twice on the days before he died but I could have. Should have, returned a day earlier and had the chance to say good-bye in person to the man who had fathered and raised me and to whom I owed so much. I should have talked with him more, visited more often, done more for him…so sadly I do not know why I did not but I cannot change any of that now.

Still, at that time, I felt fortunate and filled with life and, then, blessed even further with children. I always loved kids and thought I would make a good father and now that my kids are older I suspect that I have faltered and failed more than not but I also know that I can never give up trying to be better. Never. That much I aver, that much I do know.

A better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better person. Always move forward, that much I know. I guess I always have.

So now time wanes a bit yet I still feel somehow so alive and energized.

And still, then, the things less fortunate, much more sad than not. I have not spoken with my sister in many years or with my brother for many more. Why not?

I struggle now with the raising of my own children and feel at times that I want to just give up. Why?

The relationship with my wife after so many years seems more strained at times than it should and I ask why there as well.

My future is uncertain but still I try to take the best approach and move forward. Always move forward. That much I do truly know.

The rest, well, I just don’t know and never will I suppose.

Is that just life and the living of it? Maybe not for all but probably so for most I suppose.

Still, even with that, I just don’t know.

Will this day be my last? How many more days do I have here?

Yeah, I know….