I turned 48 yesterday, and for the past few days I have been in a sort of a nebulous funk.  I decided that I must be going through a bit of a mid-life crisis.  (A good friend reminded me that I say that every year, around my birthday…  …I do?  was my reply.  Yes.  You do.  ….and so I chuckled and shrugged it off somewhat.)

Dear Lord In Heaven, THANK YOU for friends!!!!

All that aside, I was driving home, contemplating being 48, thinking about how many more things I want to do in life. Oh, there were so many more thoughts than that — my company is going through some restructuring which has deep and painful ramifications for many people near and dear to me, and may even affect me personally, GOD FORBID — so I’ve been calculating retirement possibility scenarios, lifestyle change scenarios, and so on and so forth.  So many thoughts milling about, with the general theme that there are so many things I want and need to do, OH DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN PLEASE LET ME LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO RAISE MY CHILDREN (at the very least), and a little longer if possible, please.  And my thoughts turned to my brother, now departed eight years, having ended his own life.  Tears streamed down my face, wondering how he could possibly have been duped into thinking there was nothing worth living for.  Why didn’t anybody tell him that whatever it was that his present life appeared to be, and all prospects related thereto, were only shaded and the clouds would at some point pass, that THE SUN IS ALWAYS SHINING, and we WILL SEE IT AGAIN, once the clouds part.  The clouds come and go.  Troubles come and go.  Sadness comes and goes.  But the SUN IS ALWAYS SHINING.  We just can’t always see it.  It doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  Life is always worth living.

LIFE IS ALWAYS WORTH LIVING!