The Heartbreaks Around You

I woke up Sunday morning feeling satisfied with the clean house that I worked so hard to achieve the day before.  And I actually slept for 8 hours...straight!  As I sat down in my chair with my coffee I picked up my phone and looked at my FB app on.  I saw I had a message request...which meant someone that was not on my friend list had sent a request to message me and had already sent me a message.

I groaned because the last one I opened was a string of nasty messages supposedly from a 'friend' of Evil Spawn's Thug Life ex girlfriend.  I had copied all of those, pasted them in an email and sent them to him.  He called me and apologized all over the place for it and I interrupted him with, "I really could not care less what those Jerry Springer contestants have to say about me.  Do you think I give a rat's tail if one of them keeps calling me a "feckin'  bitch"?  I just wanted to share the 'fun' with you because why should I be the only one to have to read it.  After all, I was not the one that invited that  crap into my life.  Besides the fact that there are some things there that sounds like you were making fun of me to them because it is personal stuff."  He swore up one side and down the other that he had not done that...that they were just throwing stuff out there and hoped something would hit.  Sure.  And I am the REAL Lorelei Gilmore.  

I clicked on the invite while squinting my eyes.  But it was a name that was somehow familiar to me. I opened the message and it took a while for it to make sense and sink in.  Then I quit breathing.  My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and quit beating.  The message was from the sister of my friend David.  She said that since I had meant so much to David and he and I were such good friends she wanted to let me know that he had fallen and hit his head the day before, had a frontal lobe hematoma and passed away without gaining conciousness.

I thought, This has got to be a bad, cruel joke!  How could that have happened?

I went to his FB page and found an announcement in Spanish from the woman in Brazil that had been his foreign exchange student sister when we were in HS.  She had posted her grief over the death of her American 'brother'.

His sister Janet had given me her number.  I called it and got her VM.  I left her a message through sobs telling her how shocked and sorry I am.  I thanked her for letting me know and my prayers are with the family.

I did a lot of crying that day.  I have still done a bit today.  I am still in disbelief mode.  It doesn't seem real.  I will never hear his voice on the other end of the phone poking fun of the Democrats and wanting to debate about the Republican 'contenders'.  I remember the night he called and talked for 3 hours because he needed a friend to be there...his wife had filed for divorce and was putting him through the wringer.  Btw...she and his daughter were by his side in the hospital as he slipped away.  I am wondering what sort of things are going through her head?

He was energetic and had an enthusiasm for life.  He was always a good sport to take a good ribbing over a not well thought out comment.   He was a lover of Charlie Brown and all of the Peanuts gang.  He likened himself to Charlie Brown.

Then today, I spoke to a mother that I and the teachers of her 3 adolescents had been trying to reach for weeks because the kids were not doing much school work. She had not logged in and put in the attendance or responded to requests for contact.  She was crying...she had been taking care of her ill mother. She and the kids were living with her. The mother had died and there was no income. They had been given an eviction notice.

I called our resource officer and gave her the story and the woman's number.

I can't imagine and I do not want to have to know what that is like.

I know that I am blessed.  I may not be where I had thought I would be but I am not on the street.