Hidden Messages

Apparently there is a reason for everything. And this is actually something I have become to believe about life. We may never find out what the reason for something tragic is, but there has got to be some kind of hidden message in there somewhere. I discovered this because of my Dad and something he once said.

About eight years ago my Dad woke up one morning and decided to leave my Mom. He had been fighting a gambling addiction, which was certainly wearing on their marriage, but not so much that my Mom would have walked away from him. He went back home to his parents basement while my Mom moved in with my Aunt, her three kids and me.

They spent about a year apart all the while still in each others lives. I guess it was like taking a break from being married and resorting back to dating each other. I don't really know many details about that, but I recall divorce never being an option.

My Dad was having issues with his stomach and had been getting all sorts of tests done to try and find the culprit. On the very first day of 2004 we found out that his intestines were full of tumors. There was not much the doctors could do to help. My Dad passed away three and a half months later with my Mom, his wife, by his side. I don't know why I struggle to remember details about that time, but I do. It is either my mind's way of protecting me and aiding in the moving on process, or I just never lived in the moment enough. Either way I do know something intriguing was said by my Dad about why he left my Mom. I am not certain when he said it, how he said it exactly or even if it was said directly to me, but I do know that he made the statement. In his mind he left my Mom so she would be used to living without him and life would be easier when he was gone. He never knew for sure that he would be dying at the time he left the marriage, but in the same breath he did. My Dad never thought he would live past the age of 50 and he surpassed that by only three years. No one knows why he knew that; he just did.

Could that possibly be the hidden reason for him walking away? It does make some sense. Then again it could just be an excuse. But it has always stuck with me and sort of been my proof that bad things happen for a reason. Someone else said something to me once that I file away in the "reason why" folder in my brain. It is not hard to question why something so tragic like the earthquake in Haiti last year had to happen to people who are already struggling. I mean why would higher powers do that? Here is a possible reason: so many people talk about how beautiful the children of Haiti are. Their eyes are so full of life and hope. Since the earthquake many of them have been adopted by undercover Angles all over the world. Now the beauty and hope from these children has been spread across the planet. How is that a bad thing? There is your hidden reason.

I don't plan to sit down and analyze every horrible thing that happens in the world, to people I know or even to myself. But I will continue believing that it all does happen for a reason. It helps me live.