10/18/2013

   Once I got back to work, some aspects of what we were facing did become a little easier with which to deal, but nothing could really be described as easy. We were still trying to find our way through this dark wilderness that had become our daily existence, as individuals and as a family. I still felt a tremendous sense of failure and guilt that I had not been able to protect my son from harm. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the main functions of a father? If I couldn't protect Curtis, how was I supposed to believe that my other two children could be safe from harm? I had prayed every day with what I had believed was a faithful heart for God to bless and protect my children from anything or anyone that would even attempt to cause them harm. Where had my prayers gone? I wrestled with ancient questions with no real answers. If God is all-loving, and supposedly desires only what is truly best for us, how could any of what we were experiencing be the best in any way for any of us? If God is truly all-knowing and all-powerful, how could He have allowed something so horrible to happen? Are we all just victims of destiny?  Are we all just pawns in some great celestial game of chance? Was it just time for Curtis and his friends to leave this world for some unknown reason? Was it part of their destiny to all leave this earth together? Was the accident that night set in motion years before when we moved to our city? Could anything have prevented our son's death, and those of his friends, or was what we were enduring part of some unknowable, unalterable plan? Going back to work filled some of the time that I had been using to consider such questions, but it didn't make them go away, it only pushed them to the back of my consciousness, where they laid in wait until such time as they could rise again to torment me more directly. Logically, I knew, as many people tried to remind me, that many of these questions would have no acceptable answers, at least not in this world. That was a truth that only the passage of time would help me to accept. In the beginning I was too busy trying to accept the obvious reality that my son was gone forever, and deal with all that that meant in my life and the lives of my family. We were still going to counseling to deal with these more immediate issues. I was learning to survive one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time. I was trying to understand what my wife and surviving children were feeling and how they were dealing with their emotions and grief. No, things were not in any way easy, and some days were harder than others, but as the days crawled by I did begin to realize that I was surviving-not thriving-but at least surviving. Was there really any other choice?