What Should Have Been

There's quite a difference, isn't there?

Between what was and what should have been?

Because there is a lot of one, but there is an infinity of the other!

-Dr. Who, The Rings of Akhenaten

One of the reasons why I love Dr. Who is the way that the show has always gone beyond the simple telling of a spacey-timey-wimey kind of story and into some rather deep reflections on the human condition.  For instance the latest episode that finally begins to tell you the story of the mysterious Clara "Oswin" Oswald.  Clara and the Doctor encounter a hungry and parasitic god inhabiting a sun and consuming the worship and stories of the people that are in orbit around him.  The Doctor and Clara are out to rescue a little girl, who knows all the stories and songs of her people, who has been chosen to appease the appetite of the "old god."

Funny how the worship of gods who constantly need to be fed usually leads to feeding them children...

But that's for another day.

What is for today is how the following clip reduced me to tears:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo8dbZavEXM

Today would have been my brother's 32nd birthday.
I go through this every year.
I try to forget it, but I can't, someone always reminds me.  My Dad called this morning, someone else who knew Jon posted something on facebook, it's just rather unavoidable.
The power of grief, after nearly eight years, is becoming not so much a mourning of what was, but all the moments that never were, and that's what gets me right in the gut.
I have two kids who aren't so little anymore that will never know what an amusing fool their Uncle Jon could be.  My brother had the perfect disposition to hang around with a seven and nine year old, he never sat still, he was always up to something.  My kids would love him, but Jack was a baby and Cate was still inutero when Jon left us.
As the years go by, I am feeling the weight of what might have been a lot more than the tragedy of what was.  Neither one of them is very pleasant.
I wish I had a leaf that held all of this...
Something I could just hold up to a hungry god and have it consumed in fire.
But instead I hold all the days of Jonathan that might have been up to a loving God and He gives me tears...
And there seems to be an infinity of them...
But they are powerful enough to fill all the emptiness.

Happy Birthday Molebutt.