Alice the aftermath

I have to sob uncontrollably for a few minutes.

I put a link up to my blog so that people could read about Alice. Some folks read it and said nice things. But tragedy writes itself doesn't it?

I now think of my life as before and after. Before I was young and had my whole life ahead of me. After there are consequences to selfishness and there is shame. Shame that I cannot find it in myself to forgive those who are not as strong as I am. I have had a hard life. I struggled through some very tough situations and came out of those situations with what I consider to be a positive outcome. Somewhere deep down I know that I am a survivor. That I have the ability to pull myself up by my bootstraps and move on. Deep down. In my daily thoughts, I am less. Less than good, less than valuable. For some reason completely beyond my ken I cannot internalize that I am a successful person, with a stalled career, but with a good life. Good friends, good relationships, amazing children and even a grandchild.

So I guess this blog was never really about Alice. It was about me and how she changed who I was and who I am. While I choose to remember the warm breezes and the laughter, I choose to ignore the demons that were hovering.

We all face those demons every day. Some of us fall victim. Some, like me, have smaller demons more easily given into. Smoking cigarettes, overeating, trying not to be unkind, sometimes I win and sometimes I lose but what occurs to me is that some of us have never been tested. Not like Alice was tested. Her demons were large and ugly and too big to defeat.

In this after part of my life I hope to learn something. I hope to make this loss mean something.

But the truth is I don't know if it means anything.

I loved her.