Everybody hurts. . . sometimes.

I am not sure how to begin this post. Maybe it's because I am not sure that any of us have absorbed what just happened.

My father called me. He never calls me, so I wasn't sure what was going on and I really expected him to tell me that we had lost my grandmother. I had even been bracing for that conversation. He instead told me that my uncle, my mother's only brother, had been killed in a motorcycle accident.

It took me several minutes to process that information. It was so unbelievable, so unexpected. . . I still don't think it has sunk in.

I am not as close to my uncle as I wanted. He and my mother are just now rebuilding a relationship that had been strained for a while. However I do hurt, I hurt a lot, not necessarily for me, but for his three daughters, for my mother and for the others that did share a closeness with him. I am pained because I can only imagine what they feel, how their heart sank and their lives were forever changed with the ring of the phone.

I keep thinking of my cousin, his oldest daughter. She and I were born less than two weeks apart. I keep thinking about all that lies ahead of her. I keep thinking of the pain she must feel. I imagine she must feel lost and a little scared. I cannot imagine losing my dad, especially so suddenly and so seemingly unnaturally. I talked to her today and we both agreed, there are no words, there is nothing anyone can do to make this easier for her. I think our summary was, "This sucks" and as harsh as that may sound, maybe that sums it up. No one has the right words or actions to make it better. I think, however, that there is great peace in knowing that so many people do want to say the right words and do something to take the pain away. There is comfort in knowing that so many people care about you and would take your pain if they could.

I love my uncle and have so many fun and fond memories of him, mostly childhood in nature. Ironically, we share more than blood, we share professions. It's been a neat feeling to know that someone else in the family is "in the business" also. We hadn't spent a lot of quality niece-uncle time in the past few years, but did have a lot of professional and personal respect for one another and I liked him.

Please pray for his family and loved ones. This is the kind of shock that ripples through so many lives, changing them forever.