Journey Out of Hell

Earlier this month a British Air, Boeing 747 hurled me up into the atmosphere and out of not just a city I was desperate to leave behind, but a time period, and everything and everyone associated with it.  I glared down at the valley as the pilot made an east-bound U-turn over South Mountain.  An overwhelming sense of relief pulsed through me.  I was leaving.  My work here was finally done.  For now.

The last few years had been an unforgiving, relentless assault on my ability to see the bright side, take things in stride, keep the faith, push through or any other horseshit expression you want to conjure up to mask what we ever so adeptly dispatch from our minds every day.

In this brief period, tragedy not only knocked on my door, it came in, took a seat on the sofa and asked for coffee and the television remote.  No matter how much I ignored its presence, it persisted.  It was so sustained people started to genuinely worry and feel sorry for me, like I had just been cursed by a Namibian Witch Doctor and my demise was imminent and certain.

This inundation and ambush of grief visited upon my family took its toll on all of us.  I may have separated myself physically, but emotionally it’s as raw as ever.  I cry each day for the one we lost and the two who narrowly escaped, but not without a price.  And I realize how fragile we are.  How quickly our comfortable little world can become a raging nightmare, that renders dispatching these inevitabilities not just necessary but critical.

Go as far as you can for as long as you can.

RIP David Besst

David and Lou in the car wash
Caleb in neuro rehab
Mum and Emilia

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