Broken.....

Broken is really what I am feeling right now.  It is just not me, it is our entire family as we try and process the tragic loss of my niece's husband on Wednesday night.  A wreck, a serious wreck, gone instantly, at the scene.  Gary was on his way home from a business trip, just an hour away from his wife and daughter when his truck was broadsided by a semi, and in that moment a child lost a father and  Tammy lost her husband.  Gary was 33...far too young to become a fatality.

Gary's death is a grim reminder that we never know what the day holds when we wake up.  I think I learned that early, though the first recollection I have of tragic loss was my husband's brother just five months after we were married.  Only 17 year's old..Bill was killed walking across a street.  Hit by another teenager.  Watching our family, most of all my mother-in-law cope is forever ingrained in my mind.  Her son was gone.  He walked out the door and moments later he was dead.  How do you deal with that?  My first born son was named after Bill...William Seth Shubzda.  We called our baby Matthew Seth Shubzda.

I was forced to face first hand the tragic loss I saw my mother-in-law handle when Matt was gone in that same kind of awful second.  Just one moment...not a lengthy illness, but a moment that changed our lives for ever.  I wanted to back up time and do this all over again.  I wanted to change the course of that plane.  If only Matt had just moved a little more to the right or left, if only Bill had come back in for a drink of water, if only Gary had not tried to turn around on that road...if only.

I know that we all have days we want to be over just because maybe we don't feel like making dinner, or the line at the bank took too long, or the weather was awful, or we have a headache.  Oh how Bill, Matt, and Gary would love to have one of those days.    

This has once again been a reminder of what we take for granted, of the time we waste being angry, or the things we do not take the time to be grateful for.  In every bad day is some good, even if it is just the fact that we woke up.  Finding reasons to be thankful might put a smile back on our face.

Oh, how we will all miss Gary.  He was happy.  He was always that easy going, seemingly carefree soul that did not appear to have a problem in this world.  The perfect way to live your life.
The picture of our family has changed once again.  It is not the expected change like the death of a parent, but the loss of someone taken far too early in life.  We don't understand, but we pray...for healing and for acceptance as we stick together because that is what our family has done through far too many tragic moments.

I am thankful tonight for all the pictures the family complains about me taking.  I snap far too many....but tonight it was so easy for me to find reminders of that grin that will put a smile on my face when I think of Gary...he left a hole in the family that breaks all of our hearts.

"In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…..In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."

1 Peter 1 3-6

Even in the darkness light dawns for the upright, for the  gracious and compassionate and righteous man....He will have no fear of bad news: his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
Psalm 112: 4,7