A first, for here

Just realized this moment there was nothing for the end of the month: a marker for the intensity of events that have obviously overwhelmed to a point of missing what has become such a regular observed detail.

On the same day it was as this past one: unseasonably warm and pleasant. No jackets were necessary when the news broke that a child was on the way, by summer of the following year.

There was no way to anticipate what was to come. The most beautiful blessing, male, against the odds for a first delivery of a certain age and what was thought to not be possible by this time. What followed was the usual roller coaster that goes with hormonal changes compounded by pressures from an outside world that was not nearly as friendly as where home used to be. There was no option to not accept and embrace another human into this life.

Most memories are more joy than pain, more pain than was necessary. Too much was missing in the form of essential contacts. They were too far away. Where we were was too costly. We couldn't get out when it didn't seem to matter, when it would either have been agreed to happily or if the news hadn't been broken at all, saying it wasn't working so someone could go forward with their plans to go after someone else they thought they wanted more, never knowing what was to arrive.

Who we make up in our minds is what we attach ourselves to; caught up in emotions and all that goes with it does not reveal what others see. We often find out too late that our loyalties were misplaced, our time taken, our lives compromised, exploited as means to another's end, as if we don't matter at all. Becoming part of another's short-term purpose until the next conquest that appears to offer what they think they want, if only for the short term, as far as they can think.

This was the difference between us: different visions, objectivity, consciousness, conscience, compassion, definitions of the same words so far apart from so-called reality. Daring to label the other as if entitled or qualified, practiced enough over a lifetime to convince others without question, expecting it to work again as it always had in the past, with whomever chose to serve them, consciously or not.

Now, more lives are lost or being lost, imposed by others just like them, not yet awake. The most vulnerables' voices are silent or not heard, though they will be.