R.I.P. Pat

Over the weekend a friend of ours took his own life. It came as such a shock and hung over our holiday celebrations like a dark cloud. He was too young to die, and it's so hard to accept that he is actually gone. He and his wife are a part of our circle of friends who all live within an hour of each other but grew up in the same rinky dink town up state years ago. He leaves behind a wife and two young children.

It is such a tragedy to have a friend die, let alone in the way he did. It is even harder to have it happen at the holiday. His little girl will have her fifth birthday in a week, but she will have to have it without her daddy. How is a child who is about to turn five supposed to understand that daddy is gone and never coming back? Will they ever find the magic of Christmas again, or will the memory of his death haunt every Christmas yet to come? How do you begin, as his widow, to pick up the pieces and hold it together when your world is falling apart around you? I can't imagine the pain of her loss, nor what she is going through to try to keep it together for her kids.

My heart is heavy with this loss. As my husband said, "We aren't supposed to be going to our friends funeral's for at least another 40 years." This is the second unexpected loss of a life much to young to have ended in the past 13 months.

I know that life will go on. Time will make it hurt less and we will all move on. However, in the here and now it hurts, and most of all I hurt for those he left behind and pray they can find their way to peace and happiness without their beloved father and husband.