Prompt 2.1: Life Changing Event/On The Couch

2.1 Talk About the One Event In Your Life That Has Effected You the Most

I don't know why, but Danijela and our children have been on my mind a lot lately. That's not to say they are ever far from my thoughts, it's only that it seems lately more and more things seem to bring up reminders, and all to often those reminders end with the day I lost them.

If I look back at all of the things that have happened to me in my life, if I look at the times I have cheated death, I have to wonder why am I so lucky? What makes my life so much more valuable then those who have died around me, who have died to save me? Even with those questions, I still believe that nothing in my life has impacted me more then losing Danijela and our babies.

I look at the person I was all those years ago, I think of the innocence we shared, and all of the plans we had for our future and then I look at the things I have done, the man I have become, and I wonder what she would think of me. If we were to meet now, with me as I am, would she even look twice at me?

I recently reconciled with my brother, we had exchanged little more than pleasantries in the 14 years since I'd made the decision to leave Croatia and come to the United States. In my brother, Niko's eye I was a coward, I was running away from my past rather then facing it, and he just couldn't forgive me for that. I on the other hand saw it differently, and I know if I hadn't left, if I'd had to spend my life surrounded by all the memories of those I had lost, I very likely would have taunted death until she found me and took me to be with my family.

So, despite what my brother might have felt, I wasn't running away. As difficult as it was for me to admit, leaving was the only option there was for me, it was the only hope I had to survive. For as hard as it was to say good-bye to those I would leave behind, I knew I was running toward life, and the only future I could see if I had stayed was my own death.