The backyard was full of conversation and laughter on Sunday afternoon.
The grill was stacked with hamburgers, sausage and hotdogs. Plates filled with potato salad, chips and beans. George and Fritz carrying on conversations that probably started when they were toddlers. Hazel keeping her distance from her grouchy Oldman. My ex-wife and I sitting in the same yard where we dated, were newlyweds, became parents and finally, former spouses. We were just trying to navigate modern family life without making it weird.
And honestly, it wasn’t weird, it was good.
Then “Linger” by The Cranberries came on the radio, and something shifted in me for a moment.
Not regret, I want to make that clear.
I do not regret my marriage, my divorce, or the road that followed afterward. Regret is a heavy chain, and I have carried enough weight through the years.
I did think about the “what ifs.”
What if we tried a little harder?
What if we listened better instead of waiting for our turn to talk?
What if we gave each other a little more grace over the years?
Years when life was heavy, money was tight and exhaustion became part of the wallpaper.
Maybe things would have turned out differently or maybe they wouldn’t have.
That is the thing about getting older. You eventually realize that life isn’t a movie script waiting for a rewrite. Events happen despite our plans, our wants, and our intentions. Human beings like to think they are holding the steering wheel all the time. Life is learning how to ride through storms we didn’t see coming.
Where does faith come into the “What ifs?” I don’t go to God with the same prayers I once did. When I was younger, I mostly wanted comfort, relief, rescue, and guidance to an easier road.
Now I think differently. I don’t believe God’s main goal is my comfort. I think His goal is to make me good, more patient, more forgiving and less selfish. God has taught me to be more aware of other people’s burdens. More capable of carrying suffering without becoming cruel.
That does not mean life becomes painless. It means pain might have purpose.
The Sunday cookout over Memorial Day weekend was not about sadness. It was about gratitude. Gratitude for the people still sitting in the backyard of my life. Gratitude for the memories that still ache a little when certain songs come on, and gratitude for the hard roads that didn’t destroy us, even when we thought they might.
Because sometimes the best families are not the perfect ones. Sometimes they are just the ones that keep showing up anyway.
