Dying at age thirty-seven is something that I would not wish on anyone.

Having to be shocked back to life at age thirty-eight is not something that I would wish on anyone.

But here it is, here it’s happened, and here we are, I guess… except I was the one who lived.

Although I am and continue to be exceedingly thankful to have been given this second chance to start with (my oldest son’s father was not, as his injuries were almost immediately incompatible with life, and I was fortunate enough to be able to access the medical care that put me in the trauma bay of the local hospital when the worst of all of this began to happen), it continues to be exceedingly uncomfortable to me who isn’t here because they died at age thirty-seven. His family wanted so much for him to get help for his drug addictions and mental illness, and they could only do so much for him, especially in the end of all of it when they couldn’t do anything at all other than to find out that he had indeed actually, accidentally, perished.

I have to learn to think of living in a world that doesn’t have him in it since it will never have him in it again.