There are things that happen in life that make you just step back and reevalute what you have been doing and maybe even why you have been doing it. I didn’t know I was going to have one of those reality checks, but you seldom ever do. They never come announced, it is always sudden. I had a reality check of sorts when my Aunt passed. It made me think of the mortality of my own parents, of how precious they are and how meaningful they are. But soon enough, life returned back to “normal”.
It is different, however, when the reality check comes with the death of a child, a sudden, seemingly meaningless death of a child. It is a big reality check when you see the mother of that child on the phone, crying, and she is a friend of yours and you have a sickening feeling that you know what it is and because of the circumstances, you cannot be anything but a spectator. It is a blow, not to just them, but to everyone, to realize that this innocent child, did not have a whole life to live before them, that all the potentialities of the future, all the permutations, everything have come to a terminal end. What he could have been. What he could have done. The storebook of memories could not be built up to provide the family with comfort. The catalog of life was cut short to just a few months.
You cannot help but question things like this and wonder “why?” Why did it happen to good people? Why did it happen to a young innocent life. But there is no real why. It is what we take from it that matters.
It makes me question what I do, what I complain about, and more importantly, why I do what I do because the reality is, I make sacrifices for work becase I believe in it. Sacrifices that affect me and to an extent the people that I love. I have never, ever, truly questioned that. But now I do.
And I find, after looking deep down into myself, that a part of me is unfazed by this. There is a greater resolve. I believe in what I do. I believe in the mission. I believe that every child born here has a right to inherit a Hawaii that is beautiful and special and unique if they are blessed enough to live long enough to enjoy it. I can’t do it alone and I think it’s appropriate when all of this happened it was at a meeting where some of the parties gathered have not seen eye to eye, have had some issues with each other, and for whatever reason we’ve had conflict.
It’s time to put that behind us because at the end of the day, we all fight for the same thing and for the same reason. And if we can’t see that, then why did a little boy die and his parents and grandparents and family have to suffer the pain of that loss?
Tomorrow is another day… For some it will be far harder to go through than others but I’ve come to a greater sense of peace. That it is more ok that right now my work balance is skewed. I will seek a better work balance but right now, I need to go and kick some invasive species booty. It’s what I do, one beetle or ant at a time.
