The Day After

There will always be “The Day After.”

Today is the anniversary of our country’s "Day After" . .  . The Day After 9/11.  And each and every year as we pay reverence to the violent act of terrorism that changed our country forever, we are reminded that life goes on - albeit, a life that is different, scarred and with sadness.

Life seems to provide us with many other “Days After.”  

The Day After we hear that the cancer is terminal,

The Day After we loose a spouse through death or divorce,

The Day after we bury a beloved parent or grandparent,

The Day After we get the phone call that a son or daughter was hit by a drunk driver and is on life support,

The Day After there has been the gruesome discovery of the remains of a neighbor’s child who was abducted six weeks prior.

And it is how we handle them that really matters.

Recently, I’ve started to have an awareness of the heartache other people have experienced and I’ve become acutely aware of this with new perspective.  It is as if I used to see life through “rose colored” glasses and “bad things” used to remain at a safe “arm’s length” distance.   This isn’t the case anymore. 

I still ask why and I still don’t have any answers.  But this is what I have learned and this is what I know.

We all experience tragedy; we all grieve; we all suffer, mourn and live through heartache.  But it’s what we do with our lives after we’ve experienced great suffering that makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of others.

We have a choice . . .

To go through life angry, bitter and jaded only to complain about a life that is unfair.

Or to wake up every morning and be thankful that we are still here on this earth; to embrace life’s opportunities; to be thankful that we were given one more day to touch someone’s life; to be a personal testament to others around us that life does go on; to reach out, to touch and to hold the grief stricken and to be a pillar of strength for those who are too fragile to stand on their own.

Make Your “Day After” Count.