Bad times in perspective

I consider myself an amateur historian of both the American Civil War and World War 2 because I view them as the two most pivotal points in our countries history. During the D-Day invasion America lost 135,000 soldiers in 24 hours (29,000 killed, 106 wounded and missing) UK lost 65,000 (11,000 killed, 54,000 killed and missing) Canada lost 18,000 (5,000 killed, 13,000 wounded and missing) France had over 12,000 CIVILIANS killed and missing (wounded unknown) in one day. Germany had the largest removed from action in one day with 320,000 (30,000 killed, 80,000 wounded and 210,000 M.I.A. or P.O.W.) Consider those numbers the next time the nightly news talks about the effects of one homicide bomber in the middle east and remember the price of freedom just 65 years ago on a single day.
*Source of statistics is the Encyclopedia Britannica and deaths include those that died later from wounds inflicted on June 6, 1944.

This has been one of the worst weeks in my life. Not to be topped by this week, but pretty bad for reasons that if you know are self explanitory, and if you don't I'm not going into.

However, driving home from one of my nieces graduation parties (not one of the reasons for the bad week in case you were wondering) I was reminded that 65 years ago there were men storming a beach in occupied France who, after that day had no more bad weeks, days, or moments. This didn't solve any of the problems that have come up in my life recently, but it did make me realize that the way I've handled them has been fairly petty and childish. I still feel the way that I feel, nothing but time and communication will change that, one I can control if the other parties involved will join me in it, the other I have no control over other than to keep drawing breath.

BTW if you think you know all the parties I'm referencing in the second part of this post, you're probably wrong.

Week from HELL

OK, I declare Dec 14 through Dec 20 2008 the week from hell for my family.

Late Saturday night (about 10 PM) I took my wife into the emergency room, and shortly after midnight on the 14th we found out she was having a miscarriage (we didn't know she was pregnant until that night but had 20 minutes between when we were told she was pregnant and when we were told the baby was in trouble.)

On Wednesday my brother had a second surgery for thyroid cancer. All went well but those two items themselves were quite a bit to take.

Then on Friday, while at work I got a call first from my father saying that they didn't get the right lymph nods in Adam and they would have to be going in again on Saturday. about 20 minutes later I got a call from Heather and was told that there were some complications and that if her hormone levels weren't where the doctors wanted to see them she would be going into surgery that night. About 4 hours later we found out Heather wouldn't have to have surgery, but Adam would definitely need it. Then when I got home from work I was told by my father that his brother had commit ed suicide that morning by over-dosing on pills.

Everyone is doing well from their various medical issues, Adam is recovering well from 2 surgeries within 4 days, and Heather and I are still getting over the shock and pain of the miscarriage but this isn't a week I'd want to relive for anything in the world.