The lucky one.

I just recieved a LinkedIn message from an old college roomate. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit we haven’t been in touch for over 20 years even though I was in his wedding. He moved out west to the boomtown that was Vegas in the 1990s and in the pre-email / pre-facebook days we drifted apart.

So I was glad to hear from him and happy to get in touch and of course I enquired carefully as to if he and Rebecca were still together. Which they are not. Their daughter just started her junior year, but lives with her mother.

It just makes me think, how things like this happen in life. I’m sure the divorce was “for the best”, but more than anything it makes me thakful for what I HAVEN’T gone through.

It leaves me wondering what made me the lucky one?

My best friend in high school kind of went off the rails and then he really cracked up and ended up as a non-voluntary guest at Stillwater for over 10 years. In the hard-scrabble northern MN town I come from a lot of the kids went off the rails really quickly after high school and most of them didn’t really get back on.

Another friend sent me a picture of his 25th class reunion. He graduated from a small town in western MN where I used to live before we moved when I was 12. All 27 of the graduating class made it back for the reunion and he said to me, “When it came time to each give our ‘what we’ve been doing with our lives’ speech, I just said I’m overwhelmend and so grateful with the fact that we’re all still here.” His youngest sister, you see, isn’t still here, but her husband and kids really wish she was.

So Mrs. Grouse and I took our oldest son Henry to his first day of all-day, full-time school today. We’ve been happily married for 17 years, but only had our boys fairly recently and although having a family didn’t come without some difficult setbacks, the fact that we got there in the end is something to be thankful for.

I just think that it’s good, once in a while, to think about the things that make you the lucky one. Not in some kind of ha-ha way, but in just recognizing this I also think that the obligation to help others becomes more clear and isn’t that a better thing?

Grouse

It certainly is amazing the paths we’ve been on. I think back to decisions I made, I of course remember the bad ones. What now seems like complete moronic choices simply weren’t that clear at the time. I know just how lucky I am to have found my wife. As I sat and watched her open the birthday “presents” the girls colored this week, I smiled. The girls and her were as happy as if they were opening diamond covered gold. So, even though I can remember those foolish choices, the best choices are right in front me everyday.

Nice post Grouse! I think more people need to stop and smell the roses more often and be thankful for what they have. Given my husband’s and dad’s history with cancer, I absolutely feel lucky and blessed to still have them both in my lives. I’m also lucky to have met my husband when I was just 16 years old. ALL of our friends back then said we’d never make it; that we fight too much and we shouldn’t be together. Nuts to them! We were young and stupid, so of course we bickered a little…

But we grew up and we grew together, and that’s something that doesn’t happen every day. Here we are, almost 14 years later… and we still love to laugh together.

I have a loving, healthy young son.
I have a loving, exceptionally patient and compassionate wife.
I have a “stable” job.
I live where I like to vacation.
I have family and friends that I love and they love me.

I have more bills than I like and I drive old vehicles.
My dog crapped in her crate three times this week.
I smashed my thumb with a hammer today.

Yes, Grouse,……WE are some of the damned lucky folks,

Nice post – T