Valentine's Day doesn't mean the same thing for me anymore. Last year on Valentine's Day we were roadside witnesses to a tragic accident that took a young man's life. In the year since then, I've learned a lot of life and death. I've learned a lot about love and life. I've learned a lot about grief and pain. I've learned that someone I never knew could change my life forever. I feel emotion more deeply than I did before the accident. I read the paper with trepidation. Watching the news can cause me to tremble all over again.
And yet if I could choose over again, to have taken a different route, to choose not to have been there when Josh Discuillo was hit by a car, I would not change our route. Because I was there I was able to meet his family and share in their grief. It taught me more about the face of grief and tragedy, that every life and death effects a myriad of people in different ways. Like the ripple of a stone in water. The parents are effected the most, then the sibling, the close friends, the neighbors, and so on down to in our case, the witnesses to the accident. The ripple in my life is deeper than I could ever have imagined and yet for some reason my being there seems to be no accident. Valentine's Day for me will always be a day to remember the life of a great young man and to pray for his family.
