Sometimes figurative tornadoes tear things apart

In light of the recent tornado warning in Ingham county, here's a little story that may or may not explain some things in my life.

The other day I was sitting at home -- you know, the place I go to do laundry and eat real food. I was watching a rerun of NCIS and just waiting for my father to call me. It was the day before his birthday, the day before Memorial Day. Yet, alas, working in the newspaper industry, Monday was a production night. I had to be at work. So we were celebrating a day early. At least some of us were.

They say that photos capture moments, memories. Maybe that's why I work in a photography department. But memories can fade and change and suddenly become the most painful thoughts that the mind can fathom. And as I was sitting there, watching Leroy Jethro Gibbs head slap his senior field agents, my mother started to cry.

These once happy memories where my brother and I would vacuum the living room at the age of 5, or swim in a tiny swimming pool barely big enough for a guinea pig.  A family.

All of these happy moments captured on film, to survive until they burned to shreds.

Or until something rips through the memories and pulls them apart piece by piece, something like divorce.

My parents are in the middle of a divorce. The papers were just served, the stuff has been divvied, and my father has moved out. Everything has been turned upside down, tossed across the room, and changed shape. Happy memories of family vacations have now turned into hollow moments.

But that's why they make photo albums. You can tuck away those memories nice and neat, stick them in a closet, and you can buy a new album. You can fill it with whatever you want, whatever makes you smile or cry from joy. There is always the option to create new memories and new moments that will stay with you forever with new people.

Pulling out those old albums might hurt, just like all good things, but loss and heartache just allows you to appreciate love and joy more so than you might already.

After all, T'is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.