Life is what happens as you make other plans 2005

Life is what happens as you make other plans:




If someone would have told me that at age 33 most of my friends would be wiped out by a plague, I would not have believed it. Yet, 27 of my friends died of AIDS in a two-year period. The timing of this after finishing an MA in Communications and another 45 hours of an add-on Master of Education in English was devastating. However, I stood strong and enrolled for an Ed.D. in Educational Counseling in 1996.

I was accepted without reservations in 1996. However, Life decided to knock me for another loop—in June of 1996, I was rear-ended on the interstate highway by a retired 70-year old school teacher. She called it "a little bump". It totalled her Cadillac! I guess she called the Civil Rights Movement, "a little altercation." As for me, I spent the next two years in physical therapy compensating for 2 collapsed disks.

Dad had sudden renal failure in 2000 and spent the next 5.5 years on dialysis before succumbing to kidney failure, COPD, and emphysema , all resulting from 60 years of smoking cigarettes and cigars.
As family members' life spans approached their end, we lost 2 aunts and 2 uncles thereafter.

Mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, along with my sister.  Their recoveries took 5 years and they are now both cancer free.

Now, the total of friends passing has exceeded 30 by the time I reached fifty.
Currently, I am blessed with new friends who have helped fill the void left by the passing of  the others, though they can never be replaced.

 Cliché’ or real, life is what happens when you are making other plans.