I meant to post this a week ago, but Life seems to continually get in my way. Maybe it is appropriate timing since yesterday was my brother's birthday and today is mine (we are Irish twins - born 364 days apart)....

BUT HAD TO GIVE A HUGE THANK YOU SHOUT OUT to my Mom and Dad who put me and my kids up 2 weeks ago during "Dropped-Ceiling-Gate". It was good and bad like everything. We were displaced. I was trying to deal with buying a house and interviewing for a promotion at my day job. I had all the kids. Their Dad was out of town on tour. And as it turns out, I received a tremendous blessing. I watched my boys play guitar. On their own. With their grandfather. Playing songs. Learning chords. Learning licks. I heard my oldest daughter sing songs while her brother played the guitar. I heard my youngest daughter make up songs using some melody that just happened to go with whatever her brother was playing.

 

Somehow, music has always brought my family together. During those strange high school years when you can't relate to anyone (and especially yourself), my Dad would have us play bluegrass at Oprys or local venues.  Trust me, there was whining involved. But when we got onstage, we all came together. And sometimes Joel would just sit around the house and pick the guitar – maybe some old song like "Lodi" or some new song on the radio. And me and Hilary would sit there and sing. Or listen.

 

If you have ever lost someone close to you, then you understand infinite grief. Soul-wrenching grief. The kind that grabs your gut and doesn't let go. And all it takes is just one memory. One smell. One sound. And it all comes back again. The loss. The missing them all over again.

 

I cannot explain why, but my brother's death changed my family in a way that has pulled us apart. I do not judge it, as I try not to judge anything in life that is a consequence of emotion. But somehow, just as inexplicable, sitting around the living room hearing my kids make music brought us just a little bit closer together.

 

As we watched the ceiling fall and the house we are about to leave literally cave in on us, I told my kids, "Remember that everything happens for a reason." I do not know why Joel died. I do not know the reason and I doubt that I ever will. But I explained to my kids later that good things always come out of bad things. No matter what is happening, things will eventually get better. I told them to never give up hope.

 

I still don't know the good that came from my brother's death. Maybe it's too soon to understand. Maybe I am not ready to see those things yet. But I do know that there is good. Just like there is bad. And there is hope.

 

Today I celebrate another birthday. Another year of Life. Another year of happiness and sadness, successes and disappointments, love lost and love found. Here's to Life. To Hope. To all of the good and bad. I say it's totally worth it.