monday's mulling: heart(attack)breaking events

We've had a couple of bad news events in the last few weeks. On December 18, I was supposed to go see my girl Robin for a haircut and some color for those insistent gray highlights that keep showing up. At 4:00 a.m. my text message noise sounded (I usually turn the sound off when I go to bed but I didn't that night), woke me up, and then I was wide awake. Her 42-year old daughter had a heart attack and was in the hospital in a medically induced coma. This event left her daughter with catastrophic brain damage and she died yesterday afternoon. A parent losing a child...I can't  imagine.

Yesterday we drove to Norwalk, Ohio to attend the visitation of a friend's older brother who died a couple days ago from a massive heart attack as he drove home from visiting his mother who is dying of cancer. Her time on this earth isn't much longer and the family will be planning another funeral within the week. Talk about a double gut punch. Wow. Our friend's brother was a husband, father, grandpa, a well-loved high school basketball coach and the neighborhood grandpa - an all around good guy. The funeral home's parking lot was packed and overflow parking went across the street to the Masonic Center. The amount of people at this visitation was a testament to how well-loved this man was.

These two sudden and unexpected events show the fragility and unexpected turns life takes. 

"Yesterday is history,

Tomorrow is a mystery,

Today is a gift.

That’s why we call it the present."

Unwrap each daily gift with gratitude.