Today, April 11, 2024, would have been my dad’s 63rd birthday. How old, but how young, comparatively, he would be, if he was still here. I don’t think of myself as being all that old, but come November, Justin will be the age my dad was when he died. In another couple of years, I will be older than he ever was. He was in my life for less time than he hasn’t been. Each of those thoughts is strange to me.
I have no real idea where I am going with this. It’s just that my brother was over this afternoon for me to acupuncture his dog and mentioned that he was going to stop by our mom’s tonight, since it’s our dad’s birthday, and she’s always extra sad on this day.
I am always aware, on this date, that it would be my dad’s birthday, just as I am always aware on April 2nd that it’s the anniversary of his death. Neither date makes me particularly emotional, although it’s not true for all members of my family. I understand why they feel the way the do on these two dates in early April. At the same time, each of us had a different relationship with him when he was alive, we all experience grief and come to terms with loss differently, and we all, most likely, have a different vision of what life would have been like for our family if he hadn’t died at 40 and left behind a relatively young wife with four children, two of them still in elementary school.
Certainly, none of us can know what exactly happened the night he died or how our immediate world would have turned out if things went differently on that night. I don’t know if my life would have been better, worse or simply something different. Changing just one detail, one decision, can potentially alter everything. I believe I would still be a veterinarian, but maybe I somehow would’ve ended up in a different class or at a different vet school. I might’ve worked at different animal hospitals. I may or may not have ever met Justin. I might now live in a different house or even state. I might have different dogs and a different cat, maybe more or less small exotic pets. Maybe some or all of my siblings would have chosen different careers, had different partners, lived somewhere else, etc. Maybe my parents would still be together, or maybe they wouldn’t be. There is no way to know, and I don’t think it’s a good use of energy to fret about it.
Whatever happened that night, happened that night. Everything that has transpired for each of us since then has already done so. We can’t change any of that now. Can you say that it’s sad that my dad died before his 41st birthday? Yes. Can you say it’s such a shame that he left 5 people behind to figure out a new way to live their lives without him? Absolutely. Can you wish that he had been there for certain life milestones or met some of the people that have become major parts of our lives since he has been gone? Sure. You can feel and want all of that, but the fact remains that you’re just playing a game of, “what if?”
Yes, April 2, 2002 was a pivotal day in my life and the lives of each of my immediate family members. Since then, we have each made the decisions we have made. That event certainly influenced many of those decisions, and we may not even know or understand how. To an unknowable extent, we would be different people, living different lives than we currently are if that day had been something else at the time. In the end, I am in a good place now. The world at large is a mess. Society has plenty of problems, but me? I am personally doing just swell, and at this time, it’s most important to remember and be grateful for the people, the home, the career, everything that I currently have and to also be thankful for the people and the events that made my life as it is today possible.
“Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” ~ Nicole Reed
