Choices

# Chapter 348

Today would have been my brothers 57th birthday. Today is the one year anniversary of the death of the man who lived in this house. These are sad dates and they make us stop and consider how things may have been different if these deaths had not happened prematurely. My nieces would likely have chosen very different paths than they have these five years my brother has been gone, and Brenda and I would be living on a different street in a different house if Gene had not died last year.

But those are just the concrete pieces. My brother and the previous owner of this house could have changed the world in so many beautiful ways had they lived longer and differently. They could have had a high impact on their granddaughters and the kids in the neighborhood. I know I have as I have had to stand in their steads these years, but Gene and brother could have done it so much better than I have. They could have helped in ways that I have not been able to, they would have impacted their worlds and circles of relationships in ways that I simply can not.

We never know but often wonder at what we might have been if we had made different choices about people places stuff relationships jobs postures attitudes health and so on. But as interesting a subject that is to think about it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the choices we did make about all these pieces listed above. Those choices and those decisions are our legacies and we are building them each and every day.