The biggest D

Is it any wonder that the biggest word to describe a mishap (disaster) begins with the letter D? Possibly the two hardest things in life I have found to deal with also began with the letter D... I'm talking about Divorce and Death.

My mother has always said that as a person, I am at my funniest when I am in crisis. I have this sarcastic sense of humor that just seems to come out when bad stuff happens and helps me get through all of it with a smile on my face. I have to laugh or I will cry.

Divorce was no cakewalk. People that are normally rational adults capable of getting along find themselves tearing each other apart. Why do we do this? I refer to when Kathy Griffin pointed out in a poignant scene "Divorce sucks. It makes you feel like such a failure." Right on sister. And when you fail, it has to be someone's fault. So it's the other person's fault.

That is not the case in my marriage. I ruined my ex-husband's life, and I admit it. I didn't cheat on him, and I didn't lie to him. But I got married before I was sure I wanted to. And I found out the hard way that marriage isn't something that's for me yet. It may never be, I don't know. I'm working on finding the answer to that every day. In the meantime, I took his daughter with me back to the States and left him in Europe with no family. He has picked up the pieces, but there are definitely scars.

Divorce was a humbling experience that took a daily toll on my sanity. But you survive through it. The death of someone you love, however, is something that changes you in the most unexpected ways.

At 18 years old I had to bury my first child. The weak heart that is passed down on my father's side caught up with us and took my baby boy. He was 6 weeks old and had already had 2 operations. Now, 7 and a half years later it can still be hard to accept.

That event changed the entire course of my life. I dropped out of college, quit my job, and moved abroad. I met someone and got married and had another baby as soon as I could manage to. I had a desperate need to fill the void.

I had my child. She turned 5 last week. But the void is still there, and I have finally accepted that it always will be.

Then, in February of this year, my brother committed suicide. I have never felt so lost in my life. My brother and I were close like any two people who have been through tough situations together were. We looked out for each other, and while we fought, we were always there to defend the other from any outsider no matter what.

I still feel lost without him. But his death has also changed me in ways I can already see. I think I am finally starting to grow up. I look at myself a year ago and realize how self-centered a person I was and it amazes me. In a way, I had to take care of my child and my parents when all of this happened. Seeing your parents humbled the way the death of my brother humbled them completely changes the way you see them. I think in a way it made me realize that I no longer have to be taken care of by my family, but that I have to take care of my family.

I'm sorry, I know this post was a bit of a downer, and I don't mean it to be. This post does describe a lot of sad things that have happened in my life in the last 7 years, but all of the things that happened in the last 7 years are what it has taken for me to grow up.

I have a sense of independence and control over my life that I didn't have a year ago. However, at the same time I have become so aware of how little control we all have over what happens and it makes me appreciate what I have so much more.

Tomorrow night, one of my brother's best friend's band ( my brother played the drums for them a few years ago) is playing a tribute concert for him and I'm taking my mother to go see it. He called me the other day and told me he had written a song for Steven and he wanted to play it at the concert. I know I'm going to cry when I go, but I think it will be good for my mother to see just how many people cared about my brother and how his death has affected so many people.