A Whiff of Mortality

I've been terribly sick, but much better now. The type of 'much better now' where you're grateful you don't feel so bad. Doctors decided I'd had piggybacking viruses, one after the other. Four weeks of being really sick. It gives you a clear perspective on your life. I have two wonderful chlldren that I love the most in the world, but for whom I'm simply an acoutrement in their lives, not a part of it. I have a wife I love very deeply, for whom I am an appendage of some value. I'm the guy who has the apartment in which a self-absorbed 21 year old lives on the other side for whom I'm an unnecessary impediment to his living a life of youthful abandon. I have had three loved family member die this past twelve months. Two of them gave no though to me in their passing but used me to unknowingly handle things they didn't want to in their passage. Younger people I guided or assisted these past few years have strayed into drugs, or other forms of self-destruction. A drug addict I got into rehab only to see them emerge and crash and burn. I'm the simple good guy who always thought about others before himself. Yeah, I'd put myself out there, incur debt, or provide knowledgable advice or guidance to them. And it looks like it was all for naught. The opportunities for betterment came to nothing. I'm not depressed, I'm not down. But in looking at my life I see a trail of assists to others that failed. Plantings that bore no fruit. I see a failed garden. And I intend to find out how I failed, and to try again and not repeat whatever mistakes I made.